


The Strange Familiar

by BlueMaple



Series: Harry Potter and the Road Not Taken [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, All possibilities made new, Angst, But ONLY as cultural context, Determination, Do-Over, Don't Like Don't Read, Drama, Everybody Swears A Lot, Evil Dumbledore, F/F, F/M, Good Intentions Totally Gone To Hell, Harry is an old coot in a young body, Harry swears a lot, Humor, Introducing Harry Potter as REN CARTWRIGHT, Introducing Neville Longbottom as NEIL CARTWRIGHT, Love, M/M, Multi, Mystery and Intrigue, Not a Crossover, Occasional Mentions of Doctor Who and TARDISes, Romance, Self-Acceptance, Sensitive!Ron, Sequel, Slash, The Boy With Kaleidoscope Eyes, Time Travel, dragons!, self-identification, slow-building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-07-12 18:29:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 135,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7117645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMaple/pseuds/BlueMaple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When an aged Harry Potter arrives at King's Cross after his second and natural death, he is handed a pamphlet promising him The Next Great Adventure. Flatly refusing to board any Onward Train that won't guarantee him simple peace, Harry finds himself shunted back in time to 1989: a cranky old coot in his nine-year-old-body. Stuck, he decides to make the best of things, and to right his future before it screws him over again. </p><p>Once back at Hogwarts, though, Harry's plans are abruptly altered when his old friend Neville Longbottom informs him that he is actually part of a cross-dimensional rescue team on a mission - a mission that will not only prevent the local 2nd Wizarding War, but will grant the local Neville's parents, Alice and Frank, the chance to have the happy-ever-after that no version of them, in any world, ever received.</p><p>A mission that might actually have gone as planned if the local version of You Know Who hadn't been listening in at exactly the wrong moment... and if Harry himself hadn't been quite so overwhelmed at the thought of reliving his own destiny as a hero...</p><p>Part 3 of 'Harry Potter and the Road Not Taken'. Priors Required For Context!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Let Us Go Then

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot and do not in any way, shape or form lay claim to J.K. Rowling's world or characters. I don't want to repeat this disclaimer at the beginning of every chapter, so it may be assumed it is lurking under its invisibility cloak at the top of each. Say hello! It's friendly, and, incidentally, loves your comments. :)

**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry**

**The Great Hall**

**Tuesday November 11, 1991**

 

The mood at the far end of Gryffindor Table in the days following Harry and Neville’s abrupt departure from Hogwarts was decidedly morose. Morose, and despite the best efforts of a certain individual, rather sniffly, if only behind her thick curtain of bushy brown hair... The other students were reasonably understanding and tactful, but they _were_ still students, and by the time the one-week anniversary of the boys' leave-taking came about, there was only one remaining who truly retained active sympathy.

Eleven-year-old Ron Weasley patted the hair’s owner solicitously, passing over a crumpet laden with blackberry jam.  Twelve-year-old Hermione Granger accepted it, breaking off a bit and staring at it for a moment before bursting into yet another quiet wail. She stifled it quickly of course, grabbing for her handkerchief and burying her face in it to hide her distress. Ron hesitated, then, glaring at his mates in warning, very gingerly put an arm about her. She turned her face to his shoulder and blubbed unabashedly.

“There, there, Hermione,” he said.  It was, despite his best effort, not very bracing. “There, there. Here, have a banger.”

“I don’t _want_ a banger!’ she wailed. “Specially not from _that_ plate!”

“Uh?”

“It’s the _blue_ plate! That’s _Neville’s_ plate! Nobody ever ate the bangers off of that plate but Neville; he’d bi....” She hiccuped. “Bi... Bite anybody who tried! Anybody but _H-H-Harry_ , and he’s not here _either_!””

“They’d want you to have it,” Ron assured her. “I really do think they would, Hermione. Here, have a go.”

She accepted it, and the fork it was offered on, and nibbled. Once. Thus fortified, she put it down and blew her nose again.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You must think I’m a dreadful girl. Only I know they’re safe, and this is for the best, and that it’s probably not for... forev...” Her lip trembled uncontrollably again.  Ron shoved bacon at her hastily.

“Give it a rest, Ronniekins,” Fred, or perhaps it was George (though likely not; George was a bit more naturally sympathetic), advised him.  “And for the record? You really don’t want to get into the habit of feeding up your woman when she’s off her mood. It might be good for the heart, but it’s really bad for the ar... OWW!” He ducked as beside him, Angelina Johnson smacked him. Hard.

“Shut it, Weasley,” she snapped, her own solicitousness at least temporarily renewed by the insult.  “At least he’s _trying_. Quite good of him, really, considering that he’s just lost his own two best mates as well. Well done, Ron,” she said bracingly. “And don’t worry, Hermione. I know it’s hard now, but it’ll all turn right in the end, you’ll...” She stopped in her verbal tracks as Alicia poked her urgently, and her eyes widened as she turned to follow her rapt gaze to where it was fixed on the door of the Great Hall. They were not alone in their astonishment. Curious in spite of herself, Hermione pushed her hair back and craned her neck, blinking her reddened eyes at the sight before her.

“What,” someone from Slytherin Table said loudly. “Is a _Muggle_ doing at _Hogwarts_?’

 Hermione’s eyes rolled in spite of herself, and she sniffed. Hard, and for reasons entirely unrelated to her misery. Despite his own bemusement, Ron was pleased to hear it. He helped himself to a banger – off of the blue plate – and turned more fully to examine the mystery in question.

* * *

 

The man just entering the Hall looked young, very young  –  twenty five, perhaps, and certainly no more than thirty. He wasn’t exactly good-looking: a bit plain, actually, but his light brown eyes, as  they and their owner passed within two feet of Hermione, seemed direct and frank, and his lips were tilted up in a probably perpetual quirk. The quirk, the girl thought from her not-unaware-but-not-quite-there-yet perspective, added a decidedly attractive note to an otherwise very ordinary face.

Too, the man’s light brown hair was very nice. It looked soft and clean, was trimmed neatly just above the collar, and there was an endearing cowlick sprouting from the crown. From their distance again, as he made his way up to the Head Table, offering a brightening Professor Babbling a small smile and wave, the Gryffindors could see his only two truly distinguishing features:  a beautiful double-jeweled barbell piercing that framed the outer corner of his left eyebrow, and a long, faded white scar running from the same eyebrow straight down to his chin.

 If he had been wearing robes, no one would have given him a second glance. As thing were, his attire seemed custom designed to draw the attention that his face couldn’t. He wore a pair of baggy, cuffed khaki trousers with a multitude of pockets, a loose, long-sleeved shirt in dark red and white stripes, a plain brown denim jacket, and white canvas high-top trainers.  If the expressions on the Slytherins’ faces were anything to go by, the combination was quite enough to put any self-respecting, trained-from-birth-to-avoid-cross-cultural-contamination Magical off their breakfast.

 As the bemused students watched, the young man seated himself in the empty chair positioned at the end of the High Table, stuck out a leg, and dug into one of his calf pockets. The collective exhale of relief was very nearly audible as he extracted a self-enlarging scroll and shook it out. Professor Babbling, seated beside him, pushed dishes aside as he set it, unfurled, between them, leaning over her shoulder to point and explain.  After a moment, he shook out his left sleeve. A wand, quite long and narrow, slid out. He gave it a quick flick on the end; it morphed, not into a quill, but a Muggle pencil. The murmurs started up again, but Professor Babbling  didn’t seem to notice, or care. She just leaned in again, her crossed arms on the edge of the table, listening intently to the young man’s murmured words as he sketched.

The students watched as Professor McGonagall entered the hall to take her place. As she passed behind the young man, she tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He glanced up. She murmured an  obvious inquiry. He nodded, and, pushing his chair back, stood straight as she pointed her wand at him. His denim jacket was promptly replaced by an open- fronted  robe in the same rich, deep red as the stripes of his shirt. It fell straight, rather than in flowing folds, to mid-thigh, and had most unusually styled sleeves;  they were cuffed tightly to the elbow, and  the forearms were made, not of fabric, but of thin, supple dark brown leather engraved and inlaid in gold.... McGonagall eyed him judiciously, and pointed her wand again, at his trousers and shoes this time.  Before she could utter the appropriate incantation, though...

“Just glamours there, please.” The tenor of the newcomer’s voice was as unremarkable and pleasant as his face, if a bit husky. His accent, on the other hand, was distinctly, patently, and ear-wincingly American.  More than one student sat back in relieved satisfaction at the apparent resolution to the little mystery.

“American,” another, familiar, voice from Slytherin Table murmured. “Only that explains it, doesn’t it? Even the Magical ones, Father says, can’t be expected to dress appropriately in decent company.”

Hermione, from her own travels with her parents, could have corrected Malfoy – it was more of a case of the fact that there were simply so very _many_ Americans (and Muggle security cameras; no number of Object Obliviators, no matter how well trained, could be expected to keep up with Western paranoia) that the Magicals there were actively discouraged by their governments from wearing anything that couldn’t pass as Muggle.  She was too distracted, though.

 “I know they look a little weird,” the young man was continuing. His voice was mild, but very clear and carrying. “But I carry most of my things in the pockets so that I can keep both hands free and ready.  And the shoes are really boots – I glamoured them in the first place because they don’t really work with the pockets- but I’m still breaking them in, and outright transfiguration could mess with the sizing there.”

“Very well.” The trainers shifted slightly, the laces disappearing, the canvas sealing over and shifting into the form of stylish low boots. The trousers, after due consideration, the Headmistress let be, only casting a quick colouring charm that turned them black, reducing the immediate visual impact of the aforementioned pockets.

 “Thanks, ma’am. Gramps told me I’d have to dress to suit the natives, but all the swanky loose styles here just get in the way. In my business, manoeuvrability’s gotta come first, right?”

McGonagall just patted his shoulder again and seated herself. Even as she did, Lee Jordan squinted, and rose half-suddenly in his seat.

“Blimey,” he said, rather loudly. “Fred, George – check out his wand!”

“Can’t see it from here, mate, what...”

“It’s got Dueling Master’s bands!  Gold ones, not just bronze!  That means he’s International level, and with that accent ... He’s gotta be the bloke from the Prophet!  Longbottom’s  cousin from Alaska, the one that got called in to help in Edinburgh! You don’t think they actually bagged him to teach here, do you?’

“ _What_?” Fred nearly climbed on the seat. He wasn’t the only one. A tidal wave of murmurs and excited jabber was now sweeping through the hall. “Gorry, that’d be _wicked_!  But what would he teach? We’ve got Black for DADA already!”

“Runes, obviously,” Hermione said excitedly. “Since he’s beside Professor Babbling, and it said in the Prophet that he’s got an interest there besides. Only d’you think they’re opening up lessons there for the younger years? That would be _brilliant_!”

“That’s a really nice robe McGonagall worked up for him,” Lavender noted. “I’ve never seen one like it.”

“It’s a dueling robe,” Alicia Spinnet informed her. “Not British, so you wouldn’t have, or American – they fight in these really close-fit jumpsuits over there. Ten to one he’s wearing his now, under all those baggy clothes.  Oi, Leanna!” She waved across the aisle to catch the attention of a classmate at Ravenclaw Table. “You collect circuit mags, I know  – you  seen anything like that robe before?“

“Not exactly.” Leanna Tovis waved back. “Morning, ‘Licious. You look particularly ravishing today; can I entice you into a study date later?”

“Sure. Why not. I’ll bring the sugar quills. Robe?”

“Right. Well, McGonagall’s obviously tweaked it a bit, but as is... It’d be closest what they wear in France and Italy. Short, so it doesn’t tangle the legs, and tight-sleeved, so the fabric doesn’t interfere with precise movements or get caught on anything in close quarters. Look, it’s got buttons too; he’d fasten them if he was actually going to duel, for the same reason.”

 “I like his eyebrow piercing.  Dunno why he picked an emerald to be going on with, but it’s on the left too, so that’s a good sign. What’s that saying, left is right, and right is wrong?”  Lavender giggled. Parvati giggled along with her.

“That’s for ears. And it’s a stupid saying,” Hermione said primly.  “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being gay.”

“We never said there _was_ , Hermione. Only Professor Lupin and Professor Black are the only two decent-looking men on the staff till now, and they’re gay too, aren’t they, so it’s nice they brought in someone for us girls, isn’t it?”

Hermione sniffed, but it was patently unconvincing.  She recovered herself quickly. “As for the barbell...  If you’d read the paper, properly, you’d know why he wears it. The ruby represents July, his birth month, and the emerald’s not an emerald at all; it’s peridot. That’s August’s birthstone, and the bit they said on him said he wears it because his late wife was born in August. Only it’s his equivalent of mourning, isn’t it?”

“His _wife_ died? Oh, that’s so tragic! So absolutely, absolutely ... _tragic_!” Parvati swooned. “The poor _thing_! Look at him, he looks so...”

“Tragic?” George suggested. The man in question grinned widely and shook an incoming Professor Sinistra’s hand, saying something unintelligible that no one else caught, but that made her throw her head back in uproarious laughter. Lavender daubed dramatically at her dainty, invisible tears. The effect was completely ruined by the return of the giggles.

 “Good morning, students.” The thick, rich burr had only to be slightly enhanced to fill the Hall. The tables quieted immediately.  “I have a few announcements to make as pertains to staffing that require your full and undivided attention .”

The students murmured. All voices were immediately silenced in the wake of McGonagall’s next flat and unequivocal words.

“Albus Dumbledore will not be returning to this institution,” she said.  “At any point in the near or distant future.”

She took a deep, visible breath.

“I have been offered the permanent position of Headmistress,” she said. Huge cheers did rise at that, though not, unsurprisingly, from Slytherin Table. That being said, the occupants there didn’t look precisely unhappy: simply uninclined to what they clearly saw  as self-indulgent emotional expression. McGonagall  lifted her hand. The students quieted immediately. “I have declined.”

Jaws dropped.

“I do this not because I would not be honored, but because it is my opinion,” she continued steadily. “That you students – all of you students – deserve a Headmaster or Headmistress that you believe that you can trust absolutely. I know ...” She raised a hand again at the cries of protest. “Please. Let me speak. And... Let me be blunt. I have been Deputy Headmistress for a long time. All of the charges laid against Albus Dumbledore, on the subject of his ignoring of abuse, at least, should have fallen in my jurisdiction as well. I am ashamed to note that when I took Veritaserum in my interview, I could not say anything but that I had never noticed any such incidents, or indeed, noted my immediate superior’s failings there. My fellow colleagues have been kind enough to note that between my jobs as Deputy Headmistress, Head of Gryffindor and Transfiguration Mistress, they consider me overworked and distracted to the point of the ridiculous, but the fact remains. I have failed you.”

Indignant, negating cries rose. Even some of the Slytherins frowned at that. McGonagall shook her head.

“You are kind as well,” she said. “And I know you would be kind enough to accept my apologies, and my reassurances that indeed, it will not happen again... But no one should _have_ to apologize to you. There should be no apologies necessary, ever, for such things. My colleagues and I have therefore, suggested an alternative to the Board of Governers, effective now and until the end of this school year –an alternative that has never given any of you, or anyone for that matter, cause to doubt his integrity.  Given recent events in particular, and his particularly outstanding references on the very highest of both personal and political levels, they are confident, that again barring crisis, that the absolutely standard interim contract for a professor or Head of Hogwarts signing on after the beginning of term will be extended afterwards, for as long as all parties find the arrangement mutually agreeable.”

Exchanged looks passed all around.

“Hogwarts’ new Headmaster,” McGonagall said. “Comes to us, originally, from Fairbanks, Alaska, in the United States of America. He has spent most of his career based out of Brazil, and holds Masteries in both Potions and Herbology, as well as the equivalent of Muggle Masteries in Botanical sciences – that is, Muggle Herbology – and Chemistry – Muggle Potions. For those of you who keep abreast of non-Magical institutions of learning, those degrees, or Masteries, were earned _summa cum laude_ – that is, with highest honours - at Oxford University.”

“Is that good?’ Ron muttered to Hermione. Seamus snorted.

“Doesn’t get any better,” he muttered back. “One of, if not _the_ , highest bloody ranked schools in the world.”

“Oh.” He subsided.

“He is also,” Minerva McGonagall continued with a small smile, “the Sorting Hat has confirmed... ‘The Slytheriniest Slytherin who ever Slythered, in any universe’.”

 **For the record** , the Sorting Hat said helpfully from its perch. **It was a compliment**.

“His European connections are too, quite established,” McGonagall continued. “On both those professional and personal levels. He is third cousin to Dame Lady Augusta Longbottom, which makes him a relative too, however distant, of many of you students here at Hogwarts. His most recent notable personal accomplishment  - if you aren’t inclined to count his recent and invaluable assistance to Professor Lupin in bringing off the capture, arrest and subsequent cure of Fenrir Greyback’s entire pack in Edinburgh – was achieved just this last summer, and is now formally recorded on both American and British registries, bringing Hogwarts’ on-site battalion of Animagi to a proud total of four. If you wish to see his form, I suggest you find a large, clear room and step back to the walls. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Professor Neil Cartwright.”

And the doors of the Great Hall swung open again, and all eyes turned.

* * *

 

Neil Cartwright (a.k.a the Formerly-Known-As and Now-Chronologically-Matured Neville Longbottom), Lawrence ‘Ren’ Cartwright (a.k.a the Formerly-Known-As and Now-Magically-Regenerated-Into-A-Brand-New-Incarnation-of-Not-Quite-Himself Harry James Potter) thought, was not set so much to Comfortable and Solidly Reassuring this morning as Solidly and Confidently Formidable.  Instead of his standard corduroys and orange jumper he wore dark tweed trousers and a dark green silk waistcoat, and beneath _that_ , an ivory French-cuffed shirt with silver cufflinks. His dark brown robes were of immaculate and elegant, yet eminently practical cut, and had a single narrow ivory panel down the left front. The panel was embroidered with stylized versions of his credentials:  that is, the Potions and Herbology Mastery crests, and surprisingly, the one from Oxford.   His solid, muscular body and broad shoulders were there, but his belly was considerably trimmer than it had been at the beginning of the school year; reflective of the near-stone that he’d lost in his younger body in the last two months. He wore no jewelry on his hands as his predecessor had, nor were there spangles,  flamboyant beard, or sickeningly overtrimmed wizard hats. The silver streaks in his dark brown hair shone as their own simple testament to his age and experience, and he stood fully six foot four in his impeccably polished nailed Herbologist’s boots... The contrast between the man standing before the students now and their memories of Albus Dumbledore could not have been more pronounced.

The atmosphere in the Great Hall as the school’s new Headmaster strode forward to position himself, not behind the Head Table, but in front of it, was nothing short of electric. It took the vast majority of the students in the hall, Slytherins included, several moments to  process the fact that they had risen to their feet in automatic, absolutely instinctive respectful response to his arrival. Neil Cartwright  surveyed them all, hands  plunged in his robe pockets and a small, lopsided smile on his face.

 _Yeah,_ Harry thought. _Yeah. Hogwarts is his. He’s_ hers. _No doubt there, is there?  They might not understand it... But they_ know _._

“Lookin’ snazzy there, Gramps,” he said, his voice pitched just loud enough to carry to the far edge of the Head Table and Neville’s ears.  On either side of him, Professors Babbling and Sinistra cast identical startled looks at him, and hastily turned to hide the giggles. “ _Mighty_ snazzy. Cousin  Gussie get to you after all?” Neville glanced back at him reprovingly over his shoulder, but his lips twitched as he turned back to face the students.  Perhaps not surprisingly, it was Snape, as Head of his identified new House, who came around the table first to shake his hand.

“Headmaster,” he said smoothly. “Welcome. One Longbottom to replace another, eh?”

“Nev says hey,” Neil Cartwright said amiably, and just as clearly. His accent, like Harry’s as Ren, was ear-wincing. “To all of you, with a special shout-out to Gryffindor.” A rather miniscule girl in green and silver standing at the front end of Slytherin Table sniffed a bit at that... She was only a few feet away, arms  crossed and more than obviously trying not to appear impressed.  He caught her eye. “Bug in your ear, Miss...”

“Driscoll. Branwen Driscoll, of the Cardiff Driscolls. Second year. “ Her blue-black hair was tremendously long and straight: a rather exquisite counterpoint to her pale, quintessentially Irish complexion, and combed to her robe-covered ankles. Her deep blue eyes were skeptical; her adorable button of a nose was pointed straight up at the ceiling, and her voice, amusingly, Harry thought, was quite as inherently imperious and bossy as Hermione’s had ever been. Most interestingly of all, Draco Malfoy, across the table from her, was offering her a positively besotted look.  Harry didn’t remember her at all, which meant, the associations (and the besotted look; he would never have missed the chance to tease Malfoy with that the first time around) considered, that she had to be another cross-dimensional anomaly. He made a mental note to look her up. “You’re an Animagus? Are you a snake?’

“Nope. But since you asked so nicely... You get first hint.” Neville crooked his finger at her. She offered him a suspicious look, but at Snape’s slight nod, edged out from her seat and came to stand before him, her hair swirling about her in a prim, and obviously charmed, manner. He hunkered down and scrunched up his face. Gasps ran around as his ears popped. He pointed down. She saw his feet. She leapt back with a most undignified squeak, nearly falling over... His arm flashed out and caught her neatly, stabilizing her.

“Easy there,” he said. His voice was one deep rumble of a laugh. Harry knew it was intentional, but still. _Still_.  He could almost hear the exhaled collective breath as everyone breathed again. “Didn’t scare you with them, did I?”

“N-No,” she said.

“You’re one up on me then. They scared the socks off of me the first time I saw them.“

Several of the Hufflepuffs leaned over to look.

“AHHHHHHHH!” Hannah Abbott nearly fell off the end of the bench. “You’re a _teddy_ _bear?_ ’ The Slytherins rolled their eyes _en masse_.

“Get a grip, Abbott.” Driscoll straightened her robes and re-approached the new Headmaster cautiously. Considering the carefully masked shine of startled delight in her eyes, at least, it wasn’t entirely convincing. Hannah stuck her tongue out at her.

“Only when I’m with friends,” Neville – no, _Neil_ \-  said. “When I’m not... I’m twelve feet tall, and a hundred forty stone of raging furry North Alaskan Grizzly, a.k.a  Kodiak. Go on. You know you want to.”

Branwen Driscoll hesitated, but in the end, she couldn’t resist, reaching out in decidedly unSlytherin fashion to pet an ear. He grinned at her companionably, and wiggled it at her. She grinned back, unwillingly.

As if it were a signal, a flood of first and second years, girls and boys alike, poured forth forth from the ranks of the green and silver, gathering around. Pansy Parkinson actually squealed. Draco Malfoy crouched to examine his feet, each easily twice, if not three times, the size of his head.

The older Slytherins looked calculating. Finally, Snape waved the children back to their seats.

“I am acquainted with Professor Cartwright personally,” he informed his charges. “And have been for many years.  We have collaborated on several research projects, his private greenhouses have provided me with some of the finest specimens of every variety of potions ingredients available on either of our continents, and American or not, he has yet to produce any potion that I would not be pleased, again, to keep in my personal storage cabinet.  You may rest assured that you are in good hands.”

The personal endorsement did the trick. Slytherin clapped and hooted. Neville retracted his ears and feet back and made his way up to the Head Table. Pomona Sprout rose to her feet and shook his hand enthusiastically as he took the offered chair beside her.

 “Next,” McGonagall said loudly. Everyone sat back with a thump. “We are initiating an unorthodox, but reasonable transfer of duties. Professors Lupin and Black have requested that they exchange classes. Professor Black will henceforth be teaching History of Magic, and Professor Lupin will be taking over the DADA classes.”

Blank silence met that announcement. Harry blinked. He hadn’t known _that_ one was coming. From one perspective, he thought, it made sense; Sirius was a very effective teacher, but constant immersion in the subject, his personal history considered, wasn’t probably particularly psychologically advisable. He’d seemed to be doing alright there, though, mind, so he hadn’t worried overmuch...

Then again, he thought, glancing sideways at Remus, he didn’t share a bed with the man.  No matter the brave, nonchalant public face,  there was no telling how well his new parent coped after hours, in the silence and the dark when there was nothing between the former and most infamous Prisoner of Azkaban and his haunted past aside from his fiance’s warm, reassuring presence and his mate’s wet, feral teeth.

Never mind the fact, Harry remembered suddenly, and if all remained on standard schedule, that the NEWT  DADA students were due to start learning their Patronus charms any day now. The associations were bound to be setting him a bit on edge.

“What?’ one of the Hufflepuffs was saying, genuinely puzzled. “Why?’

“Professor Black?”

Sirius rose to his feet, clearing his throat. He looked a bit awkward, more than a bit discomfited, and most bizarrely of all... shyly self-conscious. He glanced sideways at Remus. Remus nodded in smiling encouragement.

“Erhm,” Sirius said after another moment. “Um. Well. Thing is. Well. I do like teaching DADA... And I reckon I know what you’re all thinking; I’d be thinking it too, if I were any of you, never mind Patronus week coming up... But that’s not it, really. If I’m  honest... and anyone who laughs will get detention for it...“ He took a deep breath.  “I just like History better. No, I love it. I always have, I actually got an O+ on the NEWTS. If things had been a little different – well, a lot different ...“ He grinned a bit wryly at the genuinely astonished looks running around the Hall.  “If there hadn’t been a war on, and more to the point, if I hadn’t been worried that my mates hadn’t been absolutely guaranteed to take the piss for the rest of my life over it... I might very well have gone on to take a Mastery there, and ended up back here in the very position I’m taking on now. Working beside Professor Lupin here, in the position _he’s_ always wanted. And he had a friend in, to see if we could spot the curse that Voldemort put on the position...”

Gasps arose. He waved them off. His jaw firmed, and he stood suddenly taller, his thin shoulders straightening with the sudden determined confidence of a man who, however uncertain he was anything and everything else in his personal universe, knew that here, at least, he stood on solid and incontestable ground.

“First lesson,” Sirius Black said clearly. “And relevant to all years... He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named went to school here, fifty years ago, when he wasn’t in quite so much of a position to be so fussed about  his titles. He was born Tom Marvolo Riddle: acronym ‘I am Lord Voldemort.’ If you don’t believe me, check the old yearbooks in the library and dare to tell me that that’s not the face of a man who would murder a girl in a washroom when she caught him testing the limits on the basilisk he found in Slytherin’s secret chamber under the sinks, all while intending to frame a thirteen-year-old kid as an eventual mass-murderer .”

Roars arose. He waved them off.

“It’s dead now,” he said. “No worries. My apologies to the fans of Salazar, but we couldn’t leave _that_ squirming around, could we?”

“The school has a _basilisk_?’ Penelope Clearwater squeaked.

“Had a basilisk,” he corrected. “COMC students are welcome to sign up for look before the day comes to haul it off and render it for ingredients.  I imagine that Professor Snape and Professor Kettleburn might want to utilize the remains as part of their curriculums, and I of course, will be offering tours of the Chamber of Secrets itself, once we’ve certified cleared of other nasties, to all of my classes.”

Snape rolled his eyes. The Slytherins looked like they were about to swoon.

“Back to You Know Who,” Sirius continued, back straightening even further as he warmed to his subject. “Half blood, for those of you who care, though he obviously didn’t advertise that... Magical mother, Muggle father, and she got him with love potions. Let that be a warning to any of you lot who think _those_ are a good idea, just imagine what you could end up with as a result. “

“That’s shite,” a voice sounded from the Slytherin table. “The Dark Lord, a _half-blood_?”

“Mum: Merope Gaunt, witch. Dad: Tom Marvolo Riddle of Little Hangleton, Muggle,” Sirius obliged. “Raised in Wool’s Orphanage in London during Grindelwald’s War, after said mum got kicked to the curb when Tommy Senior realized a) that she was a witch, and b) that his sweet little hag had been drugging him up on cheap Amortentia since the day they met.  She hit the streets and died in childbirth after the Orphanage matron found her laboring in the gutter outside her door. Sad, but again... An object lesson on how it’s better to do your wooing the old-fashioned, and incidentally _legal_ way. They didn’t have penalties back then for such things, but they do now, and an equivalent crime if you were to be caught would net you a good fifteen years in Azkaban, never mind the worry that somewhere out there, some well-meaning court-ordered soul could be raising the results to be the winner of his or her generation’s competition for World’s Biggest Blithering Bloody Insane Murdering Pillock. On a personal note... I don’t recommend Azkaban. It’s cold, drafty, the food is horrible, and the guards want to suck out your soul to act as fuel for making soul-sucking little babies. Literally.  My NEWT classes, incidentally, will involve a tour through my private memories of the place in a Pensieve, just so you can see what awaits you if choose to ignore my advice there, never mind the dangers of electing politicians with no absolutely no morals or common sense. Damocles Rowle, ladies and gentlemen: 1718, followed by Hesphaestus Gore in 1758. I think, under the circumstances, we can forgo the applause.”

“Thank you, Professor Black,” McGonagall said dryly. “Professor Lupin?’

Remus, rather red in the face from laughter, rose to his feet.

“I do believe you’ll all greatly enjoy Professor Black’s classes,” he said. “As for my own... Having spent most of my life defending myself, and incidentally, the rest of society, against my own unfortunate Dark instincts, I believe that I may be rather uniquely qualified to teach the subject.”

His quiet words were nearly swallowed in the sudden silence. He looked around.

“We will never rid the world of evil,” he said gently. “Not as long as we ourselves exist. The hearts of men, no matter how cunning, no matter how bold or clever or loyal,  are simply not  inclined toward singular morality. In the end, at the beginning, and at all times between, then... Our best offense , _your_ best offense, truly is a thorough grounding in _De_ fense. I look forward to teaching you everything I have learned, both in and out of the classroom.”

He sat down.

“Did you really take on sixty werewolves?’ an eager fourth year Ravenclaw asked. “Or was the Prophet exaggerating there?”

 “Yes I did, no it wasn’t, and that being said, it was, again, not an individual effort.  I’m not going to tell you the story now, but there are many lessons to be learned from the incident, on all levels, and I plan to share them with each and every one of you.”

“Blimey,” Dean muttered to Seamus. “This half-term’s going to be _wicked_. Can you believe Harry and Nev are going to miss it?”

“We can send them letters, at least,” Hermione said practically, and promptly stood on the bench, waving her hand wildly. “Ooh, ooh! Professor Lupin? Professor Lupin!”

“Yes, Miss Granger?’

“If we give you and Professor Black our class notes for Harry and Neville, would you be able to get them to them? Only it sounds like it’s going to be a very educational term, and we wouldn’t want them to miss out on anything interesting just because they aren’t here.”

“Of course, Miss Granger,” he said. “We’d be delighted.”

She plonked down, beaming. Ron rolled his eyes at her fondly.

“Finally,” McGonagall said, “we have one more new staff member to introduce.  Professor Lawrence Cartwright holds International Masteries in DADA _and_ Dueling. He will be sitting his third International Mastery in Runic and Spell-based Warding over the Christmas holidays, and competing for his International Grandmastery in Dueling at the Global Invitationals in Dublin in January – an event for which I am well aware that many of your families have tickets, and for which our own Professor Flitwick has been selected as one of the adjudicators.” Excited murmurs ran around the hall at that. “He will be working on consult with Professors Babbling and Lupin in their OWL and NEWT level classes while he gives the wards of Hogwarts a much over-due reworking. That reworking will serve as the basis for his practical examinations for his Mastery.“ She cleared her throat. “It may be noted that during his job interview, Professor Cartwright was offered the chance to visit the castle’s main wards room, and discovered a small but crucial tangle in the lesser ley-lines. He adjusted them on the spot, and as a result, the so-called  ‘curse’ on the DADA position has been nullified. Oh, and he was also the one to notice the larger tangle that hid the location of the Chamber of Secrets, and to so kindly pop down and dispose of the basilisk for us. Nasty thing, as Professor Black pointed out, and we’re well shot of it, I think. Finally.” That last was decidedly acerbic.

Everyone cheered, and every Ravenclaw in the room started waving their hands for attention as wildly as Hermione ever had. Harry rose to his feet, grinning.

“Nice to meet y’all,” he said. “Though for the record, Professor McGonagall, I prefer Master over Professor, just to avoid confusion with Gramps here.”  He nodded at Neville. “Oh, and nobody ever calls me Lawrence unless I’m in official trouble for something or other.  For those of you qualified to use it - the name’s Ren.”

“So noted.” She nodded to the sorting stool. “Just so you know what colour tie to put on the mornings?’

“Sure. Why not.” He settled himself amiably. She lowered the Hat ceremoniously.

**WHAT THE...**

“Sorry,” Harry said aloud from under the brim. “Habit. I fight with two wands, and it’s easier to leave the mental shields locked and prepared than it is to risk the crucial extra second in the distracted moment. Allow me.”

 ** _THANK_ YOU**, said the Hat. **HMM. AREN’T YOU THE INTERESTING ONE. SETTLE IN, FOLKS, THIS MAY TAKE AWHILE.  AN EXCELLENT MIND, OBVIOUSLY, YOUR MENTAL WARDS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES THERE...  NEAR STUPIDLY BRAVE, OR BRAVELY STUPID, DEPENDING ON HOW YOU LOOK AT IT...  A WICKED, SUBTLE SENSE OF HUMOR TO MAKE ANY SLYTHERIN PROUD, AND MY _GOODNESS,_ BUT THAT’S A RATHER _AMBITIOUS_ SET OF AMBITIONS YOU’VE GOT THERE...**

“Isn’t this supposed to be a private process?’ Harry inquired,

“Trust me, _Master Cartwright_ ,” the Hat said inside his head. ”I’m keeping the good stuff to myself.” **BUT WHEN IT COMES RIGHT DOWN TO IT...**

“Yes?” Professor McGonagall prompted.

**DADA, DUELING, WARDS... YOU REALLY _ARE_ DETERMINED TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE, AREN’T YOU? THOUGH SOMETIMES IT’S ALRIGHT TO THINK ON YOURSELF TOO, YOU KNOW? AND WITH THE SCOPE OF THOSE PARTICULAR AMBITIONS I JUST, OR RATHER JUST DIDN’T, MENTION... I THINK  WE’LL ALL BE BEST OFF IF I SEND YOU TO A PLACE WHERE YOU’LL BE SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE WHO WILL MAKE IT THEIR FIRST PRIORITY TO CARE FOR _YOU_ WHILE YOU’RE LOOKING OUT FOR EVERYONE ELSE. MM? WHAT’S THAT? UH. _THAT’S_ UNUSUAL... UNPRECEDENTED, EVEN, BUT... YOU MAY CONSIDER THAT AN ORDER FROM YOUR FOUNDER... _HUFFLEPUFF_!**

“Weird,” Ron muttered, as Professor McGonagall removed the Hat. Most of the other students looked equally puzzled, and not a little disconcerted... The Hufflepuffs looked at each other. Harry rose to his feet and headed quietly back to the Head Table... No sooner had he taken two steps though, than there was a squeak of a bench and a scuttle of feet, and he found himself looking down, startled, as a small hand slipped through his.

 “No,” Susan Bones said firmly. “You heard the Hat. We all did, and okay, you’re a teacher... sort of... But only part time. For now, at least, you’re not teaching, are you, so you sit with _us_.”

“Miss...”

“Bones,” she said. “Susie Bones.” Her soft, round little jaw was set. Another bench scraped, and a tall boy with dark hair stood.

“Come on, sir,” a young Cedric Diggory called. “Come on over. We’ve got plenty of room.”

Just at that moment, Harry was truly afraid he’d burst into tears... He managed to control himself though, and settled in beside Susan. Cedric promptly picked up his plate and came down, shoving aside another boy in a friendly manner so that he could sit beside him.

 “Hullo,” he said, and held out his hand. “I’m Cedric Diggory. My friends call me Ced. I’m only third year, so I won’t be in your seminars, but if you want to teach me how to duel two-handed, that would be brilliant.”

“Two-handed dueling isn’t much good to anyone who isn’t naturally ambidextrous, yeah?”

‘Shoot,” he said. “Oh well.” A tall girl with short, messy blond hair, eyes as rich a brown as Remus’ and glass-sharp cheekbones held her hand out across the table.

 “Jessamyn Rhodes,” she introduced herself. “Seventh year.  Chaser. What about Quidditch? You ever play?”

“Yeah, but I’m a little old to play for Hufflepuff, Miss Rhodes,” Harry said, amused. “Don’t you think?”

“It’s just Jessamyn. Jess, if you say yes. You could coach us, anyway,” she said hopefully. “Yeah?”

He looked her over. His lips twitched in spite of himself. From what he remembered, the girl before him wouldn’t need much coaching. Her counterpart had been one of Gin’s team-mates on the Holyhead Harpies, replacing Gwenog Jones as eventual Captain... Too, eventually, she’d won a position on the Scottish National Quidditch team. That, in turn, had led to a most scandalous romance the same year Scotland had come closest to winning, with, of all people, their major competitor’s star, Bulgaria’s Victor Krum. Scotland had lost in the semi finals, as Bulgaria had in the finals, but Rhodes in the end, at least, had chased and brought home the real prize. Her marriage to Krum had made her quite the happiest and most hated woman in Quidditch history.

“I don’t know how much use I’ll be, but sure,” he said. “I could give it a go, I guess.”

Cheers rose up. “What position do you play?’ another chaser – Summersby – demanded.

“Bit of everything except Keeper. For some reason, no one will ever let me ward the hoops, and there goes my advantage right there.”

“Do all Americans wear those kind of trousers?”  Sally-Ann Perks asked curiously. “And did you have to add the extra pockets?”

“Yes, they’re very popular. And no, the pockets are there to begin with. They’re called cargo pants, because you carry your cargo in them.” Everyone sniggered wildly at that. He grinned. “Yeah, yeah. Cultural differentials again. We call trousers pants, and pants underwear. And before you ask, yes. I could carry a bag, but I duel with two wands, so I need to keep both hands free and ready to go at any moment. They’ve got all sorts of stuff, see?” He dug for a few items at random in demonstration. “Books, pencils, pens, spare parchment rolls, owl treats, you name it, all shrunk down.”

“Pens and pencils?”

“Things you write with. Quills are purely European perversions. And  yeah, you can get them self-inking and self-correcting and with all the special features, but when it comes right down to it, I’ve never met one that didn’t leak all over the place at the worst moment. You just try getting ninety percent of the way into a multi- layered rune sequence that’s taken you three weeks to set up, and having to deal with blobs and splotches.”

“Can’t you just Vanish the mess?”

“You can, but you always end up taking a little of the ink, and therefore reducing the power, of the runes beneath the one you splotched. Sometimes it doesn’t matter that much, but when you work with runic wards, it definitely, definitely does.” He extracted a biro and pulled it apart. “See? The cartridge in the middle – that’s what Nomaji call the part that holds the ink-“

“Nomaji?”

“American word for Muggles. Singular Nomaj.  The cartridge can be spelled empty of Nomaj ink, and filled with runic ink. In the end, the only thing that’s different is how the ink is released. Neatly, without leaks.”

“Can we use them in your classes?” one of the NEWT students demanded.

“Balls, yes,” Harry said feelingly. “Please do.  It’s a lot less of a headache all around, and I’m in for anything that makes anyone’s lives a little easier.” He dug into one of his larger pockets and pulled out a pile of spiral notebooks and several packets of pens. “Here, pass them around and test them out. If you get a dry one, give a wave and I’ll show you the charm to refill it.”

“Very nice,” Pomona Sprout said as she approached.  “Tell me something, Master Cartwright. Are you wearing your dueling armor under all that?”

“Course,” he said. “Want to see?”

She just smirked at him. He rose to his feet, and stepped back, concentrating.  Stone silence fell yet again.

“God _damn_ ,” Angelina Johnson muttered from Gryffindor Table. “God. _Damn_.”

“A _men_ ,” one of the Ravenclaws agreed. “Mm. If that’s what studying for three Masteries before you turn thirty does for you, I am totally _in_.”

“I do not care _what_ the Hat says,” Jacia King, sixth year Slytherin prefect said distinctly and precisely. “He’s no more of a Hufflepuff than I am. Hufflepuffs do not look like _that_.”

“The hat didn’t actually say he _was_ a Hufflepuff,” Rhonda Fawley, her year-mate pointed out as said Hufflepuffs roared in indignant and insulted protest. “Only that the ‘Puffs were charged with looking out for him.  Technically... _Technically_... he could belong anywhere.” She paused as she considered that. “Or everywhere. I know we’re supposed to have that reputation for self-interest and all, but if the only way we can get him is to share him... We could work something out."

“Forget it, Fawley,” Jessamyn Rhodes said, crossing her arms. Every single female Hufflepuff, regardless of age, and not a few of the males, nodded vigorously. “Not going to happen. Never, not, never _again_ , neener-neener,  _and_ nyah-nyah-nyah. The Hat might have been a bit vague on the one specific detail, but that doesn’t change the fact that _we’re_ yet the ones under orders, from our Founder again, to make, and _keep_ , him happy.” She smirked. 

“Your Founder was a great bloody slag,” another Ravenclaw said truculently. “The only reason she gave you that order was so that the portrait of her that we’ve all heard that you keep in your common room can stare at his arse every time he passes through.  Only the glamours he wears over...” She gestured to the excruciatingly form-fitting chimaera hide leathers adorning the rock-hard, quite spectacular duelist’s body hidden behind the unprepossessing clothing and unremarkable face. “ _That_ , wouldn’t work on her, would they?”

“OIIII!” The Hufflepuffs roared indignantly again.

“Put your clothes back on, Ren, for God’s sake,” the Headmaster said, his voice cutting through the chaos. “Never mind the students, I’m your grandfather, and I don’t want to see it.”

“Sure thing, Gramps.” Harry waved a hand. Boos and hisses rang out. Not all of them came from the student body either; the ones from the staff table were just rather more subtle and decorous. Pomona Sprout smirked again, this time and definitely in McGonagall’s direction.  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to embarrass you your first day on the job.”

“It’s your first day on the job too, yeah?”

“Yeah, but I’m not embarrassed.”

“That’s because you have no shame.”

“Sure I do.” He slung a leg over the bench.  “Just not over the same things you do. That’s the age thing again, though, and I suppose you can’t really help it. We’re all products of our generations, after all.”

Cedric eyed him as he sat down.

“Chimaera hide, right?” he offered.

“Yup.” Harry pulled a platter of scrambled eggs over, and the closest bowl of fruit salad. “I splurged a bit after I put my name in for the Global Invitationals, or rather Cousin Augusta did.  Gotta make the proper impression, she said, never mind her bet on with the Nomaj Queen, and _really_ never mind that I’ve done my research and all of the Japanese entrants have that total obsession with fire-based spells besides.  I won’t have to cast a single Protego against them wearing this, and that’ll free me up all the sooner to knock them on their asses.’

“Dad got us tickets,” he said. “I can’t wait. D’you honestly think you’ve got a chance?”

“Wouldn’t have signed up if I didn’t think I did,” he said. He looked sideways at Susie Bones, beaming up at him in quiet, proprietary pride even as she gloated at the Ravenclaws. “You look like a knitter there, Miss Bones, or am I wrong?”

“How’d you know that?” Hannah demanded, before Susie could respond. “She is, but... How did you know?”

“Her auntie may have mentioned it when we were talking at the DMLE after the raid in Edinburgh, when I mentioned how cold Scotland is and admired her hat. She told me you made it for her. “

“You live in _Alaska_ , and you think _Scotland’s_ cold?”

“It’s not so bad there. It’s drier, anyway, and the damp here makes the difference.  I don’t suppose I could convince you to knit me one too, could I?” he asked Susie.  “In yellow and black, just like hers?”

“Just like _ours_ , you mean,” she said firmly; the beam turning to a radiant glow. “Of _course_ I will! Will you wear it to the Invitationals?”

“I will,” he promised.  The rest of the children at the table smiled approvingly at him.

“Brilliant,” Pomona Sprout said. “Now, I have to go back to Head Table, but Miss Rhodes, as our senior prefect, why don’t you go around the table and introduce everyone while you all eat your breakfa..”

“What the... AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! MOTHER-BLOODY TWAT-SUCKING HOBKNOCKING BUGGERING  _FUCK_!  _AHHHHHHHH_! Across the room, Jacia King shrieked in agony, nearly falling off her chair as a streak of white lightning tore through the open doors, rebounding literally off of her head.

“MISS _KING_!” Professor Snape snapped, but she only staggered up, brushing her hair off of her face as she did so. Her hand came away drenched in red.  She stared unbelievingly, swaying as she looked up at him. Students around her shrank and screamed at the half-ruin of her eye in her clawed face.  Snape vaulted over the table and was beside her immediately, lowering her to the floor and checking her with gentle, long fingers as he murmured to her and chanted healing spells simultaneously.  The Headmaster was right behind him, soothing and gathering up the terrified younger students. The lightning collapsed in front of Pandora Lovegood. Dishes and feathers flew everywhere.

“ _Marshmallow_?” she said, startled even through her horror at the gory scene unfolding only a few feet away.  “What the... Bloody hell, what the...  Oh my God; Merlin’s pants, your wing’s half gone! Oh Marshmallow, sweetie, what _happened_ to you? Here, give that to Mummy, darling, oh...” She took the note from her beak, crumpled rather than folded, her eyes widening and panicking as she read. “Moony! _Moony_!” Sirius and Remus, halfway to their own House Table and their own clamouring charges, turned back immediately.

“Pandora, what is it,” Remus said. “What’s wrong?”  Sirius didn’t bother with the niceties, just grabbed the note out of the shell-shocked woman’s hand.

“Mummy, come quick,” Sirius read. “They’ve killed Daddy. Me and Ginny are hiding under the gazebo by the lake; I’m alright, but she’s hurt bad and fell asleep and won’t wake up. Come quick, before they find us. Luna.”

“REN!” Neil Cartwright’s voice snapped out like a whip, ringing through the Hall even over the chaos from where he was kneeling amongst crowds of sobbing, shocked Slytherins and now roaring, panicked Weasley brothers. “GO!”

Harry didn’t even bother to answer. There was a flash and a crack and he disappeared on the spot. The fork he’d been holding fell, scrambled eggs tumbling. His shirt, robe and cargo trousers fell softly over the bench he’d been on just a moment before.

“But he doesn’t know where to _go_ ,” Pandora Lovegood said frantically. “He doesn’t know where we _live_ , Moony!”

“But... How did he _do_ that?” Hermione said, bewildered from her chair. “You can’t apparate straight off of the Hogwarts grounds; it says so right there in Hogwarts: A History!”

“Shh, Ron. Shh.” Sirius was there now, even as Remus soothed Pandora. “C’mere. SHUT _UP_!” he roared. “SHUT UP, SHUT _UP_! ALL OF YOU! NOW! THIS IS NOT BLOODY FUCKING _HELPING_!”

“But... Ginny,” Percy said hoarsely, urgently as everyone shut. “Only... Ginny’s hurt, Professor.  She’s hurt, she’s...”

Another crack sounded. Ren Cartwright reappeared, clad in skin-tight bristling black from collar to toe, his cowlick half-scorched but otherwise untouched. He held a smoking wand in each hand and had his arms wrapped firmly around two small girls: one unconscious and one weeping frantically. Poppy was at his side at an instant, easing Ginny down. The boys crowded round; she waved them back.

“Get _back_! I need room to work here!  Report, Cartwright!” she snapped as she bent over her pale-faced, immobile patient.

“Luna’s fine. Gin’s arm is broken, the bone’s right through near the elbow and she got a hard knock on the noggin, but nothing too bad. Be right back, Gramps.  I cast fan-warding around the whole area when I came in, and if anyone’s still there, they’re waiting for me.”

“Xenophilius..” Pandora begged of him as she clutched at her daughter. “Xeno...”

“They were trying to get me, Mummy,” Luna sobbed. “They were trying to get at _me_. Daddy stepped in front of me, he told me and Ginny to run, and they said...”

“I’m sorry, Professor Lovegood. I won’t be long.” Ren disappeared with another crack.

“Baby.” Pandora knelt before her. “Oh, Luna. Luna. Luna.”

“They said to get away. They said he wasn’t my dad, Mummy. That he shouldn’t waste his life on someone who wasn’t his daughter; what did they _mean_?”

Remus whitened. Sirius grabbed him.

“No,” he said. “No.”

“Professor Snape?” Jacia King said, dazed. Her face was bound in magical bandages, and her voice was thick and slow. “I can’t see, Professor. Did it get my eye?”

“It’s still there, Miss King,” Snape reassured her. “Just covered in bandages. Silence!” he snapped at his other students as he rose fluidly, the girl lifted in his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather.  “The _Headmaster_ is among you! You will comport yourselves with proper dignity while I take Miss King down to the hospital wing, or there _will_ be consequences!”

“It’s because of me, Pan,” Remus said. “Because you named her after me.” He looked as if he were about to vomit. “They must... There must have been someone there who knew we were friends at school, and that you named her after me, and after... after what happened in Edinburgh, and the cure, and... I didn’t even think; I didn’t _think_ ; they threatened to go after Harry and Neville, but I didn’t even think...”

“Of course you didn’t think!” Sirius said bracingly, though like Ron to Hermione earlier, not very. “Because what kind of lunatic just assumes that when you name someone after an old friend that that means they must have automatically fathered them for you? For Merlin’s _sake_ , Rem! You can’t make sense out of total irrationality, and that’s what this was! _Irrationality_!”

“This is not your fault,” Pandora said, crouching down and looking into her daughter’s pale blue eyes, even as she spoke to her and Remus both. “This is not your fault.  They were wrong, Luna. They made a mistake.”

“Ronnie?” Ginny said groggily. “Ow. Bloody hell. OWW!” There was a pained shriek, cut off abruptly. “Oh. That’s much better, then. Thanks, Madam.”

“You’re welcome, dear,” Poppy said. “Come on then. Let’s get you to the hospital wing too. There’s  a lovely bed right next to Miss King’s with your name on it.”

A third crack sounded.

“Ren,” Neil said, rising to his feet.

“They’re dead,” Harry said. “All bloody buggering twelve of them, the fu... Bloody cowards. The Weasleys are on their way now;  I apparated over and told them, and I sent a message to the Aurors too.  They’ll be coming by as soon as they do an assessment of the site.” He slid his wands into his sleeves and pulled off his gloves, taking the handkerchief from a silent Minerva and wiping his sweaty, sooty face.

“Are you hurt at all, Master Cartwright,” she said quietly.

“No,” he said.

“Are you sure? Twelve against one... There’s no need to be brave about it.”

“I’m fine.”

“You just killed twelve people?”  Cedric Diggory said queerly. Harry turned and looked at him.

“No,” he said precisely. “I executed twelve murderers, Mr. Diggory, in defense of my own life.”

“Did they recognize you, then?” Sirius asked.

“Yes. Of course. My picture’s been in every edition of the Prophet for three days now. “ He came over and hunkered down in front of Luna. She looked up at him with her pale, slightly protuberant blue eyes. He held out his hand, palm up.

“He had them in his pocket,” he said. “I picked him up, and brought him into your house, so he wouldn’t be on the ground, in the snow and cold, and they fell out. I think he must have been keeping them for you.”

She looked down. In his palm were two brightly carved radishes attached to delicate gold ear hoops. She pulled her hair back; he slipped them in neatly.

“They’re made of Snorkack horn,” she told him. “They’re from Sweden. Well, mostly from Switzerland. They think they’re imaginary, did you know? And they like cheese, and only take one sock from every pair for their nests, because they think people wear them on their heads and can spare the extra.”

 “I do know,” he said. “Though I’ve never met one personally. I’ve always wanted to, though. In fact, you might say it’s a bit of a life-long dream of mine, passed on from a quite wonderful friend that I met when I was just a bit older than you.”

She nodded.  He touched her cheek and rose to his feet, turning to Pandora.

“I’m so very, very sorry for your loss, ma’am,” he said. She said nothing. He handed the handkerchief back to McGonagall, and turned to Sprout.

“I would very much like a bath now,” he said to her. “If you wouldn’t mind having someone show me to my rooms?”

“Of course, dear.” She patted his shoulder.  “Tam, darling, would you take Master Cartwright along? I’m sure the castle will have set him up rooms in the Sett by now.”

“Of course, Professor,” a very familiar voice said. Harry turned.

“Tamsin Applebee,” he said. His lips quirked.  His former Mind Healer’s much younger counterpart  - she was in fifth year now, he was reminded - frowned at him slightly, around his pile of neatly folded clothes.

“Yes? Have we met?”

“No,” he said. “Your name caught my eye when I was looking over the student lists last night. I had a friend called Tamsin once.”

“And now you've got another. Come on,” she said. “We’ll stop by the kitchens on the way down.  Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like you could use a good strong cuppa, not just a bath. Maybe even with a bit of the love? _Alcoholic_ love,” she said hastily. “The house-elves keep a bottle of firewhiskey on tap, I know, for professorial psychological emergencies.”

“That would be nice,” he conceded. “Though it’s a bit early yet.” She waved that off.

“How did you apparate in and out?” she asked as they passed by Gryffindor Table. “Not to quote Granger there, but that is supposed to be rather impossible, you know?”

“I tweaked the wards a bit when I was looking them over last night, so I can get in and out in an emergency. I don’t like being cornered.”

“Ah,” she said. “That’s quite impressive.  I didn’t know you could tweak wards like that. Only you’d have to rewire the entire nexus to create a door for the one magical signature, wouldn’t you, on the level we’re talking?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “Well, no, not quite. It’s not so much a door, analogically speaking, as a garage window left open a crack. One that automatically shuts and locks when I’m not actually going through it.”

“Huh. How long did it take you to work that one up? And did you incorporate any runes there, or was it all spellwork?”

“That would be telling.”

“Oh come on. I can keep a secret. I’m really really good at it, actually. And even if you didn’t tell me, I’d get it out of you anyway. Only I started learning Legilimency this last summer, as part of an pre-Healer’s internship at St. Mungo’s, and they said I have a real knack for it. I wouldn’t do it on purpose, that would be unethical, but sometimes it gets away from me when I’m really interested in a subject.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Harry said. “Fair warning, though, you don’t earn a potential triple International Mastery in DADA, Dueling and Warding, Miss Applebee, without being a fairly good Occlumens yourself.”

They disappeared down the hall, and made their way down to the dungeons, talking quietly.


	2. You and I

 

It took the rest of the school week for Hogwarts to settle back to an uneasy normal, and for the full duration of that week, no one in the castle could truthfully say that they had set eyes on Ren Cartwright. The last witness to his physical presence, Tamsin Applebee, was only able to state when asked that she'd taken him to the kitchens, then to the Sett, where she'd left him at the door of his new rooms and the attached private bath-chamber. Since then, no one had seen hide nor hair of him. The mystery was compounded by the fact that the house-elves, when questioned on whether they, at least, had seen him out and about, were being quite astoundingly and unnaturally unhelpful.

"Yes, he is in the castle," Lonny, Hogwart's head house-elf said patiently when the new Headmaster inquired. "Yes, we is bringing him food. No, we is not being able to tell you where he is. Yes, he is asking us not to tell. Yes, we _know_ you is wanting to know, Professor Carty, but he asked us not to tell you first, you see? And he is not hurting; he is having food and clean clothes, and he says he is being at his classes to teach on Monday as scheduled, so we is having to _respect_ that. Hogwarts," he said with absolute finality. " _Says_."

And that was that. Hogwarts, the new Headmaster reflected, mind, might just be a bit self-interested on the particular subject... Attuned as he was through his Oath to every aspect of her well-being, he was actually quite aware of where his putative grandson was stowing himself. Even without that advantage, though, it it wouldn't have been hard to figure out. Every minute of every hour of every day (with a break of perhaps five hours every night) was revealing new and definite signs of an extremely adept would-be Wards Master on the active job of improving his immediate surroundings. Doors that had squeaked for centuries were silenced, toilets that had leaked and rusted from the day they were installed were now shining and dry, and, most noted (and appreciated) of all, the dungeon corridors, as a whole, seemed suddenly at least ten degrees warmer. 

"I don't get it," Ron Weasley had said, perplexed, as he'd made his way to Potions on the third day. "How do wards affect how cold it is?" 

"My guess is that he's added a few layers to the runic sequences separating the outer walls of the dungeons from the surrounding earth that encloses them," Percy said knowledgeably as he passed by in the opposite direction. "That earth keeps the place cooled, and damp when it's wet, and the inscriptions would have to be necessarily thin because the earth would be so packed about the foundations that there's just not a lot of room to add to them for such ordinary things as human comfort. Any give would be allotted for more protection spells in any case, and he'd know that, which means that he's had to have found a way around it or his examiners would just make him take it apart when they come to have a look. Of course, they may yet, if he has compromised there after all, but in the meantime, it's quite nice, isn't it?'

"I'm not complaining," Ron said. "Do you hear me complaining? Blimey, it's just weird, is all." He'd craned his neck as a group of unusually perky Slytherins passed by. "Never mind the weird smiles _there_ , but then if I had to live down here full time, a bit of extra heat would cheer me up too."

By the Friday of the week's end though, Hogwarts' newest resident's grace period had run out. Neil Cartwright appeared at Sirius and Remus' door the night before and ordered his brand new History of Magic professor  to go down and resolve his son's obvious issues.

"What am I supposed to _say_ , exactly?" Sirius asked in frustration. "'Sorry about the bad start to your week, pup, never mind having to kill twelve people your very first day into your cosmic do-over; but it could have been a lot worse'? Only if it _could_ have been worse,   _Headmaster_ , you'll need to let me know how, because I'm fairly sure that  'Oh well; I know just how you feel' won't do the consoling trick. Never mind the fact that it would be a great big fat _lie!_ "

"I'm aware," Neville, or rather Neil, had said. "And if there were any advice I could give you, Sirius, I would."

"You've known him for a hundred twenty nine _years_! There's got to  count for something!" 

"That doesn't mean I know how his mind works on occasions like this when it comes right down to it. We had very different lives after we left Hogwarts, mate. Separate lives, with very differentiated contexts, save for the occasional beer  and dinner out with our wives and families. And yes, I was his younger son's godfather, but that didn't make much of a difference, did it, when interacting with Harry himself?"

"But... Why _me_?" It was very near a wail.

"Because you're his father," Neil had said bluntly. "And it's your job, because Remus is a guilt-ridden mess and can't manage it right now."

"But I don't know what to _say_ to him!" He'd put his hands over his face. Neil came to sit beside him, and put his arm around him.

"Sirius," he said. "Do you remember the night he first got Phineas, and hung him from the ceiling?"

"Yeah. Of course. I don't think hanging him from the ceiling will do him much good though."

"No," Neil agreed. "And you'd have to get the jump on him anyway, and that's not happening in any world or lifetime. Only I was saying, because... Do you remember what Remus said to you, or rather, what you said to Remus, after he told you had to learn to interpret his  appropriate versus inappropriate actions, so that you could apply appropriate punishments when necessary?

Sirius racked his memory.

"No," he said honestly. "I don't. I'm sorry. It's been a hell of a week, and I've been worrying myself sick about him and Moony, never mind Pan and Luna. All my memory's kind of tied up right now in remembering how to stay sane and calm for them all."

"Ah. Well, you said that the best way to figure out what was appropriate behavior there," Neil said. "Was to think on how your parents would have responded to the action in question - and to respond yourself in the opposite manner. What would your parents have done for you in this instance?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, no. That's not true. I might have gotten an unpoisoned box of candy in the mail as a reward for such efficient hexing or something, and a request to send a list of the curses I used to take them down  so that Mum could tailor my summer homework sessions to skip over the ones I obviously had a handle on, but aside from that..."

"Let's put it this way. What would you have _wanted_ them to do?"

Sirius threw up his hands. 

"Fine," he said. " _Fine_. I'll do my best. Only that's never been very good, you know, and I didn't exactly get a lot of a chance to practice on him before he came up to me and told me that he's actually four times as old as I am and was moving out besides to a place and in with people who can take _proper_ care of him."

That last was, not surprisingly, more than a little bitter and resentful: though too, Neil knew, not aimed at Harry himself.

"A father's a father his whole life long," was all he said. "Never mind after, and no matter how old his child grows, or how far apart you are. No one can take that away from you, Sirius. You can take _that_ from _me_."

He'd squeezed him lightly, and risen from the sofa. Despite himself, Sirius felt a bit comforted.

_Wards Room. Wards Room. Alright. Alright. I can do this._

_Buggery fuck. I don't even know where that is. Must've been on the section that Prongs was in charge of mapping. He'd have claimed it alright, if it were in the dungeons. Never would have opted out on the possiblity of running into Snivellus, would he?_

He was a bit uncomfortable to realize that the thought didn't amuse him as much as it would have once... He'd pushed the thought aside and gone to the drawer of the side table and pulled out the Map in question, unfolding it, and tapped it with his wand.

"Show me the main Wards Room," he said aloud. It glimmered. He looked down at the empty space on the parchment, frowning. The wards room was there, sure enough, but... 

"Show me Harry Potter," he commanded.

There was no response.

"Show me Lawrence Cartwright."

Nothing.

_That's not on, is it? H'mm._

"Lonny," he called. The head house-elf promptly popped in.

"Yes, Professor Paddy?" 

"I'm not asking for specifics... I know you won't give them... But can you tell me one thing, at least? Is Master Cartwright still where you left him last?"

Lonny hesitated, then...

"Yes, Professor Paddy," he said reluctantly. "He is. I is not being able to tell you any more than that, though. Hogwarts _says_."

"I know," Sirius reassured him. "That's all I need to know." 

There was a pause, then...

"Is you and Professor Loopy going to see Masters Harry and Neville as scheduled this weekend, Professor Paddy?" Lonny ventured. "Only.... If you is... would you be telling, them, please, that we house-elves is hoping they are doing well? Oh, and we would be happy to be sending whatever you is liking from the kitchens so you is not having to spend your time playing with them doing any cooking."

"Yes, and sure," Sirius said. "Of course."

"We is packing a basket," Lonny said happily. "With treacle tart for Master Harry, and honey biscuits for Master Neville."

He popped out. Sirius stared after him thoughtfully, then down at the Map. His brow furrowed lightly as he thought on the implications there, and he sighed, and tucked it away.

* * *

 

 **(Very Very)** **Early the Next Morning**

"Are you sure you won't change your mind, pup?” Sirius cajoled as he sat cross-legged beside the young man at concentrated work beside him. “Only it's been a very stressful week to say the least, and you’re not actually obliged to stay at the school during your time off, you know? It's not like you have House responsibilities, so you’re more welcome to come with us. It might even be fun: the three of us, the cottage, and with Remy bound to be spending at least a few hours with his nose in a book, Padfoot and The Great Unnamed could sneak out to play.”

“I do appreciate that, Sirius, but... No. I don't think so.” Clad again in his baggy cargo trousers, complemented this (very very early) morning by a tight black t-shirt,  The Great Unnamed was currently sprawled on his front on a transfigured, padded platform. Said platform was hovering a good fifteen feet in the air as its primary occupant propped himself up on his elbows and squinted at a single projected ley-line strung from ceiling to floor. He held a wand in each hand, each magically elongated to a good three feet and proportionately thinned, and was holding them as he would a pair of quills, a bare six inches from the working ends as he sliced a smooth vertical  incision near the very top of the strand and pried  the edges delicately apart. “I have more than enough to keep me busy here. Hold up, hold... There. Just as I thought. Here, have a look.”

“I have no idea what I’m looking at,” Sirius said, but leaned over anyway. The glowing ley-line was now split open like a pea pod. Inside was a long, hair-thin strand of exquisitely patterned knots, each formed of dozens of tinier threads. The Ren-Formerly-Known-As-Harry prodded the center of one of the knots lightly. Sirius leaned even closer, fascinated, as the threads shimmered and glowed, fading into each other until all that was left was a smoothed patternless surface.

“What are you doing?” he asked, fascinated, not just by the action and results, but by the unexpected beauty there. “Exactly? I mean... What is that? This?”

“Well, to begin with, the ley-line itself is one of the ones that represent Ravenclaw Tower.” Harry touched the center of a second knot. It too, shimmered. Again, the smaller threads faded and disappeared. “More to the point, it's the one that routes the magical power destined to maintain its physical structural integrity. Each of these knots represents a separate window in the complex."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Structural integrity aside, each counts as a potential entrance to the castle, right, so they have to be maintained along with everything else. One of the house-elves told me last night that there are a few near the very top that have been rattling badly enough in the senior dorm rooms now that the seventh years are resorting to Muggle duct-tape to seal the drafts. If you look here" – he touched a third knot - “you can see that the windows themselves, are perfectly solid – no rough spots or threads poking out; those would indicate weak spots in the glass or the stonework surrounding - but the fact that you can see the individual threads within the knots so clearly at all is indicative of that the sealing charms around the panes themselves have loosened just enough so that they don’t fit as closely as they should. Hence the drafts.”

“How the hell do you know all this?’ Sirus asked, bemused. “I mean... Where did you learn about it?”

“On the job, mostly, at least to start with. I did study Warding formally later, in France, when I took a three year sabbatical from the Aurors. I was...” Harry thought back, not missing a beat as he worked. “Twenty four then, I think? Yeah. Twenty four. Anyway.  To start with... After the final battle in my world – dimension, whatever – the castle was a mess.  All sorts of alumni volunteered to come back and help with the reconstruction so that it could re-open on time that fall, and when I put my name in, I asked to be put on the Wards crew. They’d thought I’d want to be on the DADA team, checking and testing for residual curses and whatnot, and kicked up a bit of a fuss at first because I didn’t have any experience with the necessary types of magic, but I said had enough of confrontation and curses for awhile, and wanted to work from the other end.  In the end, they let me have my way – they figured I could always just maintain the blood-to-tea ratios of the actually helpful people or something, I suppose.”

His audience snorted at that. Harry grinned. He seemed in a surprisingly good mood for someone who had gone through the particular last fortnight he had, but from long, painful experience, Sirius knew that _that_ was exactly less than indicative.

“Hey, it’s important, that ratio. Absolutely crucial to the overall success of any runic sequence more than three layers deep.  Anyway. They sent me along, and first order of business was to try to recreate a proxy castle from the remaining ley-lines to see what they had to work with.” He worked his way swiftly down the incision, sealing it from the top as he went and extending it from the bottom so he could access more knots.  “It showed up, of course, but just as a big pile of glowing rubble. Much more of a mess than they’d anticipated;  every single ward on the grounds was damaged in some way, if not outright destroyed. Everything, and I mean _everything_ , had to be reconstructed from the ground up. So much to do; so little time to do it... In the end, they didn’t care that I didn’t know what I was doing, they just cared that I was willing, and able, to learn. And I was, and did.”

“What about after it was all done? Only I thought you went right to the Auror Academy?”

“No. Not quite. I didn’t enroll till after Christmas that year.  After we were done, mid –August... I went back to my regular life. But it wasn’t regular. It couldn’t be. No one would leave me alone; I was going a bit crazy with it, I guess. In the end... I ended up in Romania for a few months, at Charlie Weasley’s suggestion, at the dragons reserves, and the warding teams there taught me everything _they_ knew. Some of it was the same type of thing I’d learned at Hogwarts, but most of it wasn’t, because the wards have to apply to live creatures, not just buildings. Totally different process; much more on-your-feet spell-casting, only they do have runes of course, but you don’t have the time to redraw a sequence, do you, with a Chinese Fireball coming in at you full tilt? Oh, and of course, dragons are magic resistant, so you’re working with absolutely tremendous amounts of power. That was when I first started practicing with a second wand, and practicing my Occlumency so that I could defend with one hand and attack with the other.  By the time I came back and started at the Auror Academy, I was adept enough so that they put someone on me just to make sure I developed the skills.”

“So you’re not actually naturally ambidextrous?’ Sirius asked, after taking a moment to absorb and sort through  all that.

“Nope. It took me a good three years of practice to gain equal proficiency there.”  He paused as he reached a particular knot, lighting the tip of his wand-needles for a closer look.

“Oop,” he said.”The frame’s not just loose in this one, the stablilizing charms on the glass are degrading. One mo’.” He lowered his feet (clad comfortably in  a pair of thick yellow and black striped socks, they’d been up in the air, waving vaguely as he worked) and hitched himself a bit closer on his elbows.  “ _Engorgio_!’

The section of the ley-line he was working with swelled obligingly, till it was thick as his wrist. Sirius watched, again fascinated, as Harry widened the straight incision with surgical precision, etching two perpendicular lines at top and bottom and peeling back the edges so that he could not just see inside, but work more properly within the exposed cavity itself. “Okay, and don’t take this the wrong way... Shut it for a bit? Only I just have sixty seconds to do this in before the remote node up in the Tower notices what I’m doing and panics.”

The tips of his wands blurred as he worked: four consecutive knots unraveling entirely into a nonsensical bundle of teeming thread.  Sirius turned his head, watching, not the skillful re-knitting of the exposed tangle (and that was _exactly_ what it looked like) but the young man’s face as he concentrated with absolute focus on the task before him.  His expression was rapt and soft: deeply relaxed and peaceful, and in the absolute silence, his breathing seemed slowed to half pace as it would have been had  he been in a meditative trance.

Forty three seconds later, precisely, Harry let out a long, slow sigh and withdrew, easing his wands away. Sirius watched as the ley line sealed itself: the incisions disappearing and shrinking back to normal proportions. Harry scooted back to a sitting position, crossing his legs and rolling his neck and shoulders. They crackled most satisfyingly.

“All set,” he said. “They’ll  be snug as a book crammed into one of their cases now.”

“Well done,” Sirius complimented him. “From the perspective of 'I have no idea what I'm talking about but I feel obliged to beam proudly in acknowledgement of your obvious skill anyway." He hesitated, and plunged in before he could stop himself. "Not gonna lie, pup; Remy and I have been dead worried about you. As charming as I’m sure the Hufflepuff dorms are, never mind the proximity to the kitchens, three and half days of holing up has had Padfoot and McWolf ready to come down and sniff and dig you out personally.”

“I haven’t been holed up,” Harry protested. “I’ve been _working!_ My seminars don't start till Monday, right, so I figured I might as well get a head start."

"I'm aware. I'm also becoming aware that you have a really bad habit of hiding out, physically, when you don't want to talk about something. My Mind Healer could tell you - hell, _I_ could tell you, even without his insight - that avoiding an issue, physically _or_ mentally, doesn't exactly make that issue go away."

"I'm not avoiding _anything_! I'm just... processing."

"Process faster," his parent advised him brutally. "Your schedule considered, never mind the specifics of your debut, we were all perfectly willing to give you your bit of privacy to recoup, but then again, and considering that your seminars do start on Monday, I am officially here  to remind you that you need to get a grip."

" _Officially_? You're saying Neville sent you? As Headmaster?"

"Yes."

There was an ominous pause.

"So noted," was all he said. Sirius Black sighed, but with irritation this time, not in frustration. Parenting was one thing, only no one had ever told him how incredibly strong the temptation there could, and would, be to just... _smack_ your child, however old or grown he might be, upside the head. Particularly, he thought to himself, when they were sporting _that_ expression, and working with _that_ tone.

"Work with me here, pup, would you? You know how I feel about you, and yes, I was sent, but in the end... I would have come anyway. Only you're still not showing up on the Marauders' Map, and that's pretty indicative right there, isn't it?"

“Huh?”

"It’s reflective of your state of _mind_ , pup. Or rather, on the current state of your identity. You haven’t decided who you _are_ yet.  You’re registered as Ren Cartwright, but your mind still thinks of itself as Harry Potter. With most people it wouldn’t matter, but you’re the son of three of the four original makers of the map now.  We fixed it up, see, so that any of our kids would have access to the magics that could change the way it works – the Map, that is – and as it’s identified you as one of the designated heirs, it’s loath to piss you off by calling you by the wrong name.”

“Oh,” Harry said blankly. “Huh. That’s a bit weird, isn’t it?”

“Not really. And that’s another thing,” Sirius added as a not-quite-afterthought. “Self-acceptance aside... You’re supposed to be American now, and you keep using British-isms. You’re going to need to watch that, kiddo, when you come up for air, or someone is bound to notice.”

“Uh?”

“No more bloody buggering,” his parent translated. “Or bollocking. It’s all straightforward Westernized fucking for you now. Should be easy enough since you’ve got no interest in blokes, yeah?”

He grinned at him encouragingly. Harry just grimaced. The platform lowered to the ground, he boosted himself to his feet and fetched up his dueling boots, standing neatly in the corner. They did, indeed, look a bit odd with all the pockets. He looked down at himself, and pointed his right-hand wand. The pockets smoothed out. He pointed at the brown denim jacket. Pockets popped all over the interior. He slid the wand away and pulled it on before bending to tuck the loose black cotton fabric of the trousers into the boots.

“Alright,” he said. “Alright. Fine. Though if I’m that stubbornly American, everybody’s just going to have to get used to the sight of me like this. I can’t work in robes, Sirius, seriously. Not if I’m going to be a full-time professional duelist and Wards caster again, and glamours won’t work either. I have to be completely free of that kind of thing, or the magics will tangle with some of the most standard of spells I’ve got in my repertoire.”

“You didn’t wear robes in your world?”

“No. Well, yes, most people did, but after the point, I didn’t.  I got a lot of flak for it at first, but after awhile, everyone just accepted it as one of my well-deserved eccentricities.”

“Alright. Well... Neil will understand anyway, and he’ll have a word with anyone else who argues, I’m sure.”

“Neil?” Harry quirked an eyebrow at him. Sirius sighed.

“I know. I just... I can’t think of him as Neville anymore,” he confessed. “Remy says the same thing.  We know he _is_ Neville, but... He thinks of himself as Neil now.  He’s internalized it, and made it actual, and that it makes it easier for us to internalize it too. Map’s got no problem there; never mind the name, it pulls out its best calligraphy to chart him, and practically follows his progress with little hearts and flowers. Oh, and his footprints don’t show up as feet. They’re little bear paws.”

Harry laughed.

“It might help,” his parent said after a moment. “If we were to call you Ren.  All the time, even in private. It might make it easier for you to think of _yourself_ as Ren. I know you didn’t get off to a brilliant start in terms of leaving the past behind you on your first day of  starting over...” His voice gentled. “Twelve men, no matter that they deserved it; no don’t argue with me, it’s still what it is, and I reckon it’s been a long, long time, given the chronological and your age, since you’ve had to take a life anyway...”

“Not that long. I never actually retired, and something was always coming up. It’s just...” His shoulders tightened as they left the Wards Room. “I don’t know if I did the right thing, you know? By killing them.”

“Uh?”

“I didn’t _have_ to take them down,” Harry said unhappily. “I could have just as easily as incapacitated them, and brought them in. No matter what I told Diggory, my life wasn’t at risk for a single second; it rarely is, no matter the numbers and never mind all the decades’ worth of spell advancements that I have to work with now.  I could have taken on fifty of them at their particular level of non-competence, and still come in without a scratch.”

“Then why did you take them down?”

“Because I did a quick legilimency scan on all of them, when I popped in the second time– they were gathered in a group, consulting on tactics while trying to get past the wards I cast - and I didn’t even have to dig for the information I wanted. It was right there, right on top. They hadn’t been looking to kill Luna; they were looking to capture her. The gambling rings I read about in those history books I got from the library ... They still have access to a few werewolves who won’t want to be cured, and they were going to bring her to them, and have them turn her, and can you just _imagine_ the money set on, and celebration around, watching the infamous traitor Lupin’s daughter turn for the first time, and in combination with the onset of puberty at that? They were going to watch her, and record everything, and when she’d turned... Send in the worst of the uncured options,  by lottery, all of them, in descending order,  to breed her.  And then they were going to sell all of the recordings for even _more_ money.”

Sirius stopped abruptly in his tracks.

“Well, then,” he said, and resumed. “I, personally, am of the opinion, that you did exactly the right thing. Did you make it hurt?”

“Yeah,” he said. “A lot. I just.... They were going to take Gin..”

“ _Ginny_ ,” Sirius corrected gently.

 “Yeah.  They were going to take her too. Because she was there, and just as emphasis. They’ve got nothing against Arthur; he’s actually fairly popular as wizards go, I gather, or at least not hated, because he’s pro-integration and acceptance at the Ministry, but as she’s Ron’s baby sister, and Ron is my... Harry and Neville’s – best friend. It balanced in their eyes.”

“I just don’t know how you had time to do it, in the end,” Sirius said frankly. “To take them all out, I mean, that fast. You were there and back so quickly.”

“I’m the efficient sort, I guess. Also, they were hired goons, mostly. Not exactly trained to go up against someone like me, as I said. ” His shoulders hunched again.. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have...  It’s just... Between all that, and Luna’s description of what happened – Xeno standing in front of her, and telling her to take Ginny and run... “

“I get it, pup.” Sirius put an arm around him as he walked.  “I do. All of us who know you get it. Starting off your new life, your new chance, with that... And the aftermath... It’s no wonder you’re still confused on who you are. But it’s done now, and can you try to leave it as the last gasp, to look at it as things coming full circle for Harry Potter, as brutal and insensitive as it sounds, instead of the start of things for Ren Cartwright... and start getting on now, as the new man you are?"

Harry said nothing. They took the last turn toward the kitchens.

“How’s Pandora doing?” he asked finally. “And the girls, and Hed... Marshmallow? And Jax?”

“Jax?”

‘Jacia King. Nobody who knows her calls her Jacia. She hates it.“

“Oh. Only... Really?” He looked a bit disconcerted. “How did I miss _that_? I mean, yes, she’s a Slytherin, but she’s in my classes, after all.”

“Where you call her Miss King, yeah?”

“I guess. Still. Well... Pan’s a wreck, naturally.  She’s on leave, though still here at Hogwarts, as is Luna. Remus is spending most of his free time with her. Them, and they’ll be here for the time being, for their own safety.  Ginny’s still in the hospital wing; her arm is fine, but the concussion was lingering. Couple more days, she’ll be set right.  King – I mean, Jax...” He hesitated.

“What?”

“Marshmallow – the owl – was hit by a stray curse,” he said reluctantly. “A really ugly one. Because she had an open wound when it hit, it went into her blood. And she bled all over Jax, when she opened her face and eye... Snape got to her and got rid of the curse residuals themselves, but the effects will still remain. The scarring can’t be erased.”

Harry’s gut plummeted. He actually had to stop, there in the corridor, to struggle for breath.

“No,” he said, sickened. “No. Oh my God. No.”

“They’ve got her pretty doped up,” Sirius confirmed. “Mostly because of her reactions when she’s not.  You know how it works with cursed scars, better than pretty much anybody. She can’t even be reassured of the efficacy of glamours.”

“And the eye itself?”

“They could heal it,” he said unhappily. “If they could restructure it first. Put everything back into its proper position, first. But they can’t. The tissue there, it won’t be moved.”

They reached the kitchens. Harry put his hand on the pear, thinking rapidly as he tickled.

“Are they still trying?” he asked. “I mean... Is she still being actively treated? As in, are fluid magics being poured into the site, as opposed to them just letting it be?”

“Yeah, I guess. Yeah. They don’t want to give up yet, she’s not ready for that. It’s way too soon. She’s only sixteen, and maybe it’s false hope from our perspective... But she’s not ready to hear it yet.” He looked up, suddenly, as the door opened. “Is there something that you can do? I mean, with what you know from...” He wilted. “Only Snape would have said. And Neil too. So... No. There isn’t is there?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “Actually... There might be. Hold up.” He waved to the closest house-elf, amongst the herd now charging them in delight. “Hey, hey. Yes, I want food, I do, but... Wibbly, is it?” he addressed the one at the forefront. “Do me a favour, would you, and run down to Jacia King’s dorm room, and fetch me up her hairbrush?”

“Her... What?”

“Her hairbrush. The thing with hair in it? Don’t take the hair out; I need it to help her.”

The elf’s eyes widened. “Master Ren can be helping Miss Jax?” she breathed. “Really?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just popped out.  Thirty seconds later she cracked back in, holding out a little hand. Harry examined the brush she held. It was fairly bristling with thick, frizzy strands.

“It was under her bed,” Wibbly said. “She has a cat, Miss Jax does, and it likes to knock things off and push them under.   Wibbly found it though! Wibbly is very good at finding things!”

“Excel... Fanta... Brill... Fuck. What’s the word I’m looking for...”

“Cool,” Sirius offered. “Or awesome.”

“Awesome,” he nodded. ‘ _Fucking_ awesome.” He cast a wandless, wordless stasis charm around the hairbrush, and tucked it into a pocket. His stomach growled loudly. The elves squealed and hauled him to a chair.

“Master Ren must sit! Master Ren must eat! What would Master Ren like?”

“Whatever’s most convenient,” he said, and craning his neck at a plate of iced cinnamon rolls on a nearby counter, pointed. “Those look really nice.”

“Those is for Professor Shelley, I is afraid.  We is making you some of your own, Master Ren,” the head elf said. “It will only be taking us a few minutes.”

There was a silence. Harry sat back in his chair. After a moment, he slid his wand out of his sleeve and quite deliberately cast a Muffliato charm around their table... The elves looked a bit offended, but said nothing.

“Professor Shelley?” he asked, looking at Sirius. “What’s this?”

“Erhm.” Sirius looked decidedly discomfited. “Well... Pan taught Charms, you see, and well... and your m... Professor Shelley... She’s not just good at Potions.”

“And they couldn’t find someone else? Anyone else?’

“They needed someone right away. And she had the pre-established  in-house priors. Top of the qualified list for substitutes, and well... Pan’d pretty much taken over the OWL class, and with all the extra days off lately, and two more this week besides...  The students are more than a bit behind. She’s up in Ravenclaw Tower though,” he added. “Her quarters, I mean. So she can work with Professor Flitwick there. I’m sure you can avoid her if you really try.”

“She’s _living_ here? In the _castle_? Full _time_?”

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea. I was dead against it, actually, but after we realized that you weren’t showing up on the you-know-what,  Nev... The Headmaster said that ...” He lowered his voice. “He said that you two need to work things out. As soon as possible, in the name of long-term self acceptance.”

Harry slumped unhappily and chewed on a banger.

“What did he mean?” Sirius said after a moment. “By that, exactly? Only I asked him, after, and he said to ask you.”

“About what, exactly?”

“Long-term self acceptance?”

“Yeah.  Oh. Oh. Right.  That. I’d meant to tell you, but it all went to shit. Turns out I can’t leave.”

“Leave what?”

“Here. This dimension. When the Room changed me, it changed my core: proof exhibited by the Great UnNamed.  Reshaped it, for good, and since the parameters of the door were defined by the parameters of my old one...” He gestured to himself with the banger. “I won’t fit, as is. What you see now is what I’ve got to be going on with, not just till we’re done with the Rituals, but for the next hundred years or so.”

It took a solid minute for that to process, or perhaps for Sirius Black’s mind to accept what it had heard. Despite his simmering sullen pique at the thought of his enforced proximity to She-Who-He’d-Really-Rather-Not-Think-About, Harry couldn’t help but smile a bit as the knut dropped.

“You won’t fit,” his former-godfather-now-official-father repeated. “You’re here... For _good_?”

“Yup.”  And with that, Harry blinked... In all his hundred near-forty years, he thought, he couldn’t ever remember seeing that kind of pure, transcending, absolute _joy_ on a human being’s face before. On _any_ being’s face before.  The man before him didn’t just glow with it; he radiated it; he erupted with it, he seemed to literally _expand_ with it. It took over his features as if it were possessing him as an independent live thing.  He didn’t whoop, or cry, or even seem to breathe; he just sat there and stared, and...

 _Happied_ at him.

The elves looked at each other. Lonny, the head elf, went to the plate of iced cinnamon rolls, and took them, and placed them firmly in front of Harry.

“Eat,” he ordered. Harry glanced down, startled.

“Uh? I thought these were for Professor Shelley.”

“Professor Shelley,” Lonny said with great and absolute authority. “Has never been making our Professor Paddy smile like that. Never mind Azzykaban, we elves has not been seeing Professor Paddy smile like that since he was in fifth year and Professor Loopy made him his mate. So... She can just be bloody waiting.”

Harry nearly choked on his last bit of banger. Sirius flushed furiously. It went quite becomingly with the happy. Lonny patted his knee.

“You see, Professor Paddy?’ he said.  “We elves is telling you, is we not, when you is coming back to Hogwarts where you is belonging? Things is bound to be getting better now for you. You is bound to be getting better, we said, and now... You is.”

 He went back to his station, beyond the range of the Muffliato spell.

“Stop that,” Harry said, awkwardly, after another full minute.  “You’re embarrassing me with it.”

“I’m allowed to embarrass you with it,” Sirius said. “I’m supposed to embarrass you with it. You’re my pup. And I’m... I’m your _father_.” The happy, if at all possible, actually ratcheted up another notch. Possibly a dozen notches, never mind the puff-chested glowing pride that prodded it along. _“Forever.”_

Harry put his banger down and smiled back at him. The icy cold, numb spot that had been sitting squarely in his middle since he’d realized the full impact of his psyche’s request to the Room of Requirement melted like ice cream on a hot, bright, last-day-of-July morning.

“What’s the date?” he asked.

“Uh?”

“November...  fifteenth, right?”

“Fourteenth, actually. I think? Yeah. Friday the fourteenth. Why do you ask?”

“Whatever. It doesn’t really matter, I suppose.” Harry wiped his hands on his trousers, and reached up to remove the barbell from his eyebrow. “It’s the month that counts.”

“If you say so. What are you doing?”

“Rubies are for July,” he said, his wand slipping out. “November... November’s citrine.” He touched the tip of the wand to the glimmering red stone, and then to the peridot. “The ‘Puffs will think it’ll be a nod to the House colors, maybe... But we’ll know what it _really_ means. Citrine for a son born in November, and onyx for black. House Black. And I’ve got Remus’ hair now, so that’s alright _there_ , isn’t it?”

He slid the barbell back in. It glimmered softly.  He tucked the wand away, and picked up a cinnamon roll and took a huge bite.

“Not quite birthday cake,” Ren Cartwright said around the mouthful.  “Ah well. For the record, and in the future... I like apple crumb best. With cream cheese icing. Mm. This is fucking _awesome_. Bite?”

He held it out. Sirius took it and tore off half in one go with his teeth.

“Pig,” Ren said, snatching it back.

“Dog,” Sirius corrected.

“Pig-dog. Great _English_ pig-dog. Hands off, before I’m forced to show you my crude American disdain and fart in your general direction.”

Sirius threw back his head and howled with laughter.


	3. When the Evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry is now officially known as Ren. Mostly. Except when he slips up. :)

**Saturday, November 15th**

**(The Next Day)**

Xenophilius Lovegood’s funeral was scheduled for that chilly, grey Sunday in Ottery St. Catchpole. Pandora Lovegood, fearful of a renewed attack by the gambling cabals on her child, was reluctant to allow Luna to attend at all, and it was only when Ren came to her on the Saturday afternoon and offered to attend as her daughter’s personal guard that she was persuaded to loosen her white-knuckled grip on her own fear and shock just enough to make the concession.

Ren sat, once the concession had been made, huddled awkwardly opposite her on her sofa in the Lovegoods' quarters. He’d come to make the offer, and Pandora had accepted, and now he didn’t know what to say. He might very well have a knack for destroying the destroyers of families, he thought, but dealing with the grieving beneficiaries (if one could call them that) of his talents in the aftermath had always, thanks to his native emotional incompetence, been someone else’s department...  Even his own children, the former Harry Potter reflected, hadn’t found him particularly comforting. Dependable, yes. Consistent, yes.  A good set jaw and bloody stubborn ally in any spot of trouble that required a personal champion against unreasonable adults, yes...

But actually physically and emotionally _comforting_?

No.  He didn’t just lack the ability there; he verged, as Al had told him bitterly more than once during the worst of his tumultuous adolescence, on downright disabled. James had been a little more tactful; despite his careless, exuberant and somewhat reckless personality, he had had a heart as soft as sponge, and as for Lily... Harry had often teased her that he’d named her after the wrong flower, grandmother or no. His nickname for his own eventual Healer of a daughter had always been Heartsease. 

Ren felt a real pang at the thought that, after witnessing the particulars of his debut, it would be more than unlikely that any of the children at Hogwarts, even the ones in Hufflepuff, would ever be able to see him that way.  The demonstrated ability to single-handedly execute twelve murderous arseholes without retaining a scratch might, again, reassure them, but only and ever afterwards from the prudent, wary distance.

And _goddammit_ if that look in Cedric Diggory’s young and laughing eyes  _(You just killed twelve people?)_ hadn’t hurt, just in that split second, more than any memory of the Cruciatus ever had.

_Maybe I should just get a flat, and apparate in every day after all. Kids shouldn’t have to live with that kind of fear, not in their own home._

“Thank you,” Pandora was saying. “You’re very kind.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “And I’m sorry too.”

“For what?”

“For your own loss. Moony told me about your wife. I hadn’t read the accounts in the Prophet. “

“No?”

“No. Xeno put out his own paper. The Quibbler. We’ve never had a subscription to the other. Well, we did recently, but only as padding for Marshmallow’s cage.”

Ren grinned at that, despite himself, then sobered again.

“Is she alright?” he asked. “Your owl, I mean?”

“Her right wing’s gone. Can’t be grown back. Professor Kettleburn reckons that maybe it’s kindest to... “ She caught his look of absolute horror and winced.  “It’s just... Only she’ll never be able to fly properly again, will she?”

“How’d she get here at all?” he asked, when he’d composed himself. “In that condition?’

“Accidental magic, I think. Luna was just so terrified that her core aimed everything it had there at the poor thing on instinct, and apparated her back to me. To the gates, anyway, and the force of it provided her with enough momentum to bring her to me. It would have taken her hours to fly here without that kind of push, even at her top speed.”

“Will you let me see what I can do for her first?" he asked.

“What can you do for something like that?”

“I grew up in Brazil. The main Wizarding school there, Castelobruxo – I didn’t go there myself; I was homeschooled, mostly - specializes in magizoology. And the magical jungle’s a brutally dangerous place, and as the pets are always breaking out and getting themselves into trouble, they have at least three magical vets on staff at any given time.”

“Vets?”

“Healers,” he clarified. “That specialize in animals. In this case, magical animals. The things they can do are just crazy. Miraculous, even, and that’s not even counting all of the new medicines and potions they come up with every day through the Herbology department there. Best in the world, no question, but that’s not surprising since it’s smack in the middle of the rainforest and they have all those weird plants to experiment with.”

“It’s a long way,” Pandora said. “And we owe you so much already, Ren.”

“Don’t worry about it. Gramps already has a portkey booked since he’s  going back there next weekend. He wants to pick up some of his seedlings and bring them back for the series of personal greenhouses he plans to build here.  I’ll ask him to take her.”

“If you’re sure he wouldn’t mind? Luna’s just devastated at the thought of losing her.“ She wiped her eyes again. “She’s not the only one. We bought her, you know, so that we’d have a way of keeping close once I came here, and hadn’t been for her, I’d have lost both her and Xeno. “

“He won’t mind,” Ren reassured her. “He’s a good guy. We butt heads a bit, though that might just be me and his perspective on me as a sad disappointment of a grandkid that couldn’t boil water without blowing up a cauldron or grow cactuses without killing them, but what can you do. He can’t draw a properly protective rune sequence to save his life, not without tracing paper and a personal assistant to do the job for him.”

“I don’t think he really needs protective rune sequences, not with his particular Animagus form. Will he want to stay, do you think? Past the end of the school year?”

“Definitely.” That much was true, Ren thought. He’d definitely _want_ to. Whether he’d be _able_ to would be a different story. “He loves it already.“

“What about you? Where will you be going after you finish with the wards?”

“Nowhere just yet. I have a bone to pick with certain of the locals now, Professor Lovegood. A whole series of them, and I’m not going to see my cousins stuck under Fidelius for the rest of their lives besides. If I have to take down every stinking, shit-assed feral-and-associated in all of Great Britain to ensure that possibility... I have no problem with that."

“Has Fudge approached you yet on the subject of hiring on with the Aurors?’

“There’ve been a couple dozen messages sent this past week. I’ve made it pretty damned clear that I’m a strict independent, but he just doesn’t want to take no for an answer now.”

 “He won’t give up,” she advised. “You don’t know me, but you can trust me on that one.”

“Oh well. Wards expert, remember? I’ve set up my message system to reroute anything along those lines straight to the bottom of Phineas’ cage.”

“Phineas? Harry’s owl?”

“Yeah. He’s lent him to me while I’m here.”

Her lips quirked. It was near invisible quirk, but it was still a quirk.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “When it comes right down to it, I may end up owing you more than my daughter’s life.”

“How’s that?”

“Professor Kettleburn’s turned Hagrid’s hut into a bit of a vet facility of his own. She’s down there now, and as Phineas roosts in the thatching, he was there when Marshmallow was brought in. He’s quite taken with her, if the encouraging hoots and the number of eviscerated flounder he keeps dropping down the chimney at her is any indication.”

Ren blinked at her. “Really? How’s she taking it?”

“Regally and as her absolute due? She’s a bit of a queen, that one. Quite assured of her place in the universe, and astonishingly intelligent for an owl besides.  She’s never just been a pet, even in the few weeks we’ve had her. She’s a real  member of our family.”

“I’ll talk to Harry tonight,” he promised. “And ask if he would mind if I sent Phineas along with Gramps too, as part of her cheering squad. He’s a nasty horrible grump, but if he’s giving her fish and serenading her under her window – or rather down her chimney – there’s nothing else for it.  Especially if she’s accepting his courting tokens.”

It hadn’t exactly helped her– nothing could, really, he knew, or would – but it had helped _him_. He’d once thought, after Hedwig, that he’d never own another owl, but Phineas had grown on him. Grown on him, and worried him, particularly after Hagrid had left Hogwarts. He’d, not to put too fine a point on it, pined rather there. Ren was more than willing to send him along with the-Marshmallow-he’d-once-known-as-Hedwig, if there was even the remotest chance that he would come back with a new and actual friend, never mind a potential mate. An ordinary female owl, of course, would never take a second look at him, but _his_ Hedwig had never, ever been one to judge any kind of book, however strangely feathered, by its colour.

All else aside, Harry ( _Ren, Ren, it’s_ Ren _now,_ he reminded himself) found himself rather and unexpectedly enchanted at the thought of being a grandfather of sorts again. He took a moment to ponder the probable patterning there... _White with black spots? Black with white spots ? Stripes? What do you get when you cross a Phineas with a Hedwig – a zebra with feathers! –_ before returning his attention to the formalities, and the job, at hand.

 “Look,” he said awkwardly again. “I’m sorry. I’m absolute shit at this.”

“At...”

“I’m good at being helpful when there’s something to be done. But we both know that there’s nothing that I can say here that will help; we both _know_ , so... Maybe I’d better just go.”

She’d half-risen as he had, and caught his hand. He looked down at his in hers. It struck him, just at that moment, that aside from McGonagall’s hand on his knee as she’d reassured him of her intent to be a constant in his new life, that it had been almost two years since a woman had voluntarily touched him.  It was not a remotely sexual thought, but it left a rather cold and desolate aftertaste anyway.

“I’m sorry too,” Pandora said. Her long blond hair was dull, her strong, expressive features thinned and ravaged in her grief.  “About your wife again.”

“Thank you,” he said, and after a moment... “That’s a fucking stupid thing to say, isn’t it? Thank you. Nobody wants to be thanked for making... having to make... that kind of condolence.”

“No,” she said. “Ren.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. I know... No I don’t know... “ She paused. “I’d rather you hadn’t had to do it. I’d rather no one had had to do it. Hell of a world we live in, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he said after another moment, and sat down beside her again.  “Someone’s got to, though, right?”

“Someone does,” she agreed. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Only if you promise me that neither of us are obliged to say anything to each other while we drink it.”

She actually laughed a little at that, and went to fetch the kettle, and poured him a huge mug, and stirred in the cream and honey with as practiced a hand as Neville and Augusta ever could have managed. He tucked his socked feet up, and huddled into the corner of the sofa, wrapping his hands around it. She sat opposite again, tucking her own feet up. It was a bit of a trick; she was a tall woman, and most of it was leg. Ren drank his tea and watched her as she drank hers. Her hands looked cold and chilled, the flesh pinched and almost blue.  The numbness of grief, he knew, translated in more ways than one. He dug in one of his multitude of cargo pockets and pulled out a biro. She jumped, startled, as he turned about, sitting on the edge of the sofa and taking her free hand in his.

“What...”

“You’re freezing,” he said, and pushing her baggy sleeves up, traced a quick sigil on her inner wrist, right over the pulse. The runic ink glimmered. He tapped it lightly with his wand; it faded to a discreet silver tattoo.  "It’ll keep your extremities warm for three months at a time. Mid-January I’ll renew it for you again.”

“Mm.” She shivered convulsively as the magics took over. “It’s like dipping my hands and feet in a hot bath. I didn’t even know I was cold in the first place.”

“Standard Alaskan issue. I did it for Gramps as soon as the first flake of snow hit the ground. He’s got used to the heat in Brazil, and never mind his Animagus form, can’t stand the cold anymore. Comes in handy on my own end, too.” He turned his own wrist to show her.  “Never mind the clothes, it’s absolutely impossible to duel when you’re wearing double-thick mittens.”

“You’re a popular man in the dungeons these days,” she noted. “Well, since Thursday, anyway.  How’d you manage to adjust the temperatures there so effectively?”

“I didn’t actually,” he said. “I mean... That wasn’t really me. Not fully, anyway. I did a bit, but there’s limited room  to work with. “ He shifted. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

Pandora Lovegood lowered her mug.

“Go on,” she said.

“I rewrote a bit of the runic sequences that pertain to the structural integrity and physical upkeep of the dungeons as a whole,” he confessed. “They haven’t been modified in centuries because they’re not as potentially unstable as the rest of the castle, so whatever monies your Board of Governors allocated for Warding reviews never went there. I had a peek, just out of curiosity, and tinkered a bit just to see what would happen.”

“Tinkered,” she repeated.

“I added a rune to the end of each relevant sequence. A temporary one for now, but it can be made permanent if the need arises. Essentially, it identifies and incorporates a major new factor into the all of the relevant equations: that is, the new Headmaster’s magical signature, with emphasis on his identified Animagus form and an extra bit underlining the fact that he’s both a Slytherin and a Potions Master.”

“His house identity and career choices are written into his magical signature?”

 “No. I tweaked that too, when I was transcribing. Put in an extra bit, again, listed as ‘things to be taken into consideration when deciding on the magical coal rations for the lower furnace’, and addressed  it to the main magical nexus under the Wards room. That’s where Hogwart’s distributed power comes from, and as he plans on building his own potions lab and will be visiting Slytherin House quite a bit, it’d be really inconvenient for the castle as a whole, wouldn’t it, if he fell into hibernation while he was down there?”

 She stared at him.

“Would he?” she asked finally.

“Would he what? Fall into hibernation? No idea. It’s his first official winter as a bear. I imagine the castle doesn’t want to take any risks there, though, not after Dumbledore.”

“Bugger me,” she said. “That’s brilliant.”

“I didn’t really expect it to work,” Ren admitted. “Addendums like that are generally taken as suggestions rather than demands, since they contain elements that are subject to change. I mean, Gramps will always be a bear now, but he could always stop brewing, or refuse to embrace his singular House identity on the principle of embracing the whole community.”

“Do you think he will?”

“No. He doesn’t see any contradiction there; in fact, he sees huge value, he was telling me, in being assigned to the one House that doesn’t believe that it has ever been, or ever will be, part of the community as a whole. It’s one of the things he talked about with Cousin Augusta, I know – it’s a great school but the kids coming through don’t  really identify themselves as Hogwarts students. They identify themselves as House members; they literally define themselves by the fact, and, at least if they stay in Great Britain, are defined _for_ it, for the rest of their lives. It’s poison, really, on all levels. Who’s the same damned person, after all, at fifty or seventy or a hundred as they are at eleven or seventeen? What can be said, really, about a society that promotes that kind of segregationist attitude? He wants to fix that, and the best way to fix it is to be a role model of someone who can be both – who _is_ both. Both a proud member of a House, but, before all else, someone who is a proponent of, and assigned to, the greater community as a whole.”

Pandora said nothing else. Ren finished his tea, and made his way back to the Hufflepuff common room, where he was promptly greeted by an extremely impatient Great Horned owl bearing an official-looking envelope. Curious, he took it, seating himself  in a squashy armchair, and unfolded it. His jaw dropped as he read, and more than one student looked up, startled, at his colourful language. The portrait of Helga tsked disapprovingly. Professor Sprout, passing through, tilted her head at him.

“Problem, Master Cartwright?’ she inquired.

“It’s from the International Masteries board,” Ren said. “I was supposed to sit my Wards exams over the holidays, but  now they’re telling me that the guy in charge of the practicals won’t be available till next summer at the earliest.”

“What?”

“Yeah. They must think I’m really stupid. I know exactly what they’re up to;  the fiscal year ends the last of March, and the fee I paid for the exams is non-refundable. If they postpone till after that, I’ll have to pay again.”

“But that’s not _fair_!” Emily Carpenter said indignantly, sitting up straight. “They’re the ones who cancelled on _you_!”

“Oh, but they’ve put a nice little clause in to cover their ass...ets,” he amended hastily. “They can fit me in if I’m willing to take the exams – get this – this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.”

 “This... You mean... Coming _up_? But it’s Saturday now!”

“Guess they figure I can afford to postpone, what with the cash from the Order of Merlin and all, never mind the bounties from bringing down Greyback’s pack and the prospect of winning an International Grandmastery in Dueling. What’s an extra five thousand galleons to a man with all that coming in?”

An abiding silence sounded.

 _Five thousand galleons_?’ Ernie MacMillan choked. “To take an _exam_?’

“It’s not just any exam, Mr. MacMillan,” Professor Sprout said. “It’s an International Mastery. They have to bring in representatives from at least six different nations to judge Master Cartwright’s skills there, and it’s all on his knut.  He’ll make it back easily of course, and within three months if he passes – skills such as his are in high, high demand, and there are always those willing to pay for top level security – but in the meantime...” She sat on a footstool opposite. “What are you going to do, Ren?”

“Take them next week. You don’t apply for the date unless you’re already ready to take the test, and I`m not going to line their pockets for no good reason.” He turned the parchment over, crumpled as it was, and retrieved a pencil. Emily leaned over his shoulder as he wrote.

**Next week’s fine. Send me the list.**

**LC**

“The list of what?” Emily ventured as he attached the restuffed envelope to the Great Horned owl’s leg and sent him off again.

“Examination sites. Hogwarts is only one of them. The five thousand galleons not only goes to pay the assessors, but to cover the costs of the port keys to the chosen locations. Egypt or South America’s always a safe bet; curse-breaking is warding in reverse and they’ll want to test my skills there.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Gabe Truman, the fifth-year prefect asked.

“No, no. I don’t think... Lemme think, lemme think... Wenesday, Thursday, Friday...  They’ll start me off here, so that takes care of my Wednesday morning OWL Runes seminar; you can all just tag along and watch, but that still leaves DADA NEWTS and Runes NEWTS.”

“I’m sure we can get a substitute, Ren,” Pomona assured him.

“No, no, it’s okay.  I’ll just put the word out and ask if anyone wants to swap Wednesday class times with me for Thursday and Friday.”

“As long as they get to bring their own classes along to watch you at work,” the Head of House said. “I don’t see a problem. “

“What do you think they’ll ask you to do?” Macy Corleone asked eagerly.

“This and that,” he said vaguely. “You’ll see. “

He wandered off down one of the small corridors off the main common room towards his quarters, tapping his fingers against his thigh.  He turned the first corner and paused to listen.

“Is there any chance he could get hurt doing these, Professor Sprout?”  he heard a fourth year named Roman Alcott ask.

“There’s always a chance, dear,” Professor Sprout said. “I wouldn’t rate it terribly high, but it’s always there. “

“Doesn’t he have to come up with something new?”  Yara Summersby asked. “At this level? I mean... Completely new?”

“He does. Several  somethings.  You’re very fortunate, children; I have a feeling we’re all in for a treat. I suppose I should warn Filius.”

“Professor Flitwick? Why?”  Cedric asked. “He’s not a warding expert.”

“No, but the examiners will likely be recruiting him as one of their in-house seconds for the duel.”

“Duel?’

“Yes. Master Cartwright will be expected to display his skills in self-defense, and as part of a team, in spell-casting. Three straight hours of on-the-spot deflection from all sides. A nice little pre-demonstration for those of you who won’t get to see him at the Invitationals in Dublin.”

Ren sighed, and resumed his path down the hall.

_Bastards._

_Ah well. It’s not as if I haven’t had the solid century to prepare._

He tapped his wand on the knob of the door to his new sanctum.  Once inside, he made his way to his study, retrieved his denim jacket from the back of the desk chair, and fished in the inner pocket, digging out Jax King’s hairbrush.  He examined it closely.

_Should work._

_No reason why it shouldn’t._

He tapped his fingers on his thigh again, and, going to his bedroom and the closet there, stripped out of his clothes and the chimaera hide armor beneath. Ten minutes later, he was showered and redressed in baggy dark jeans and a white crewneck. He slipped the denim jacket on, tucking the hairbrush away again as he glamoured his dueling boots to trainers once more.

  _Alright, Miss King,_ he thought. _Window’s closing._ _Time to see what we can do for you._

He made his way to his study again.  It was typically furnished, but the desk itself was a unique delight. Large and old-fashioned, it was made of burnished beech, with attached carved shelves and quite a wild and intriguing number of drawers, nooks and pigeon holes. Each of the pigeon holes was engraved with the initials and class designations of one of the other Hogwarts professors.  Ren reached into the one marked **_S.S. Potions_** and withdrew a trio of small vials, wrapped in a small bit of parchment.

**_These are the last of my stock.  They are not of the finest quality – the lacewings were a bit mouldy– but they should suit for the initial stages of treatment. The Headmaster and I are making arrangements for the other now._ **

**_S.S._ **

Ren tucked the three vials in another pocket, and scrawled on the back of the parchment with a biro from the mug beside the pigeon holes ** _._**

**_Heading off to see her now. Give me an hour._ **

He stuffed the parchment it back in the pigeon hole, ducked out of his quarters and made his way back to the common room. He was just about to turn to the main door when he hesitated.

_I owe them this much._

“Kids,” he said, mindful of his Americanisms. The students looked up. All smiled; even Zacharias Smith, the great bleeding little hemorrhoid, looked more curious than sullen.

“I want to apologize,” Ren said awkwardly. “For the other day. The first day. If I scared any of you. Coming in, just like that, off of...” He shifted.  “I want you to know that I don’t do that sort of thing lightly. I mean... I don’t usually do that sort of thing at all. Um. Kill people, I mean. That’s not what dueling is about, not the way I look at it anyway.”

“Well, yeah,” Cedric Diggory said after a moment. “We know that, sir.”

“You... Do?”

“Yeah.” He looked a bit discomfited, and glanced over at, of all people, Tamsin Applebee.  “You didn’t scare any of us. The situation did, but... You were _wicked_.”

“Killing people,” the Ren-formerly-known-as-the-World’s-Greatest-Auror said. “Is not wicked, Mr. Diggory.”

“No, no, I just meant...” He, too, shifted. The other Hufflepuffs seemed quite content to let him cram his own foot in his mouth, or perhaps just to extract it, as was his perceived duty, on his own.

“It’s good that it was done,” he said carefully. “When I said that bit about ... If I sounded critical, sir... I apologize. I meant, it was good that you did it... But it wasn’t good that you _had_ to do it. I was worried – we all were; we all have been, all this week – on...” He flustered.

“Professor McGonagall asked you if you were alright,” Tamsin said quietly. “And you said you were fine. And Ced said ‘You just killed twelve people,” and he meant it as ‘You can’t be fine if you killed twelve people,’ not  the other. We’re not afraid of you, Master Cartwright. We’re glad you’re here. All things considered... especially after how Professor Dumbledore left...  I think we find it a bit comforting, you know?’

“Yeah,” Will Marchbanks, a sixth year, agreed. “I think that’s why all the other Houses have been going on about how they want you reSorted.  They want you to come live with them, at least part time, so they can feel safe too.”

Ren had to lean against the wall at that.

“I make you feel safe,” he repeated.

“Well, yeah.” Marchbanks nodded.  “You kind of radiate it actually. I mean... “

“You look so nice,” Isobel MacDougal blurted. “And ordinary.  Like us. Like anybody. But you can apparate out of Hogwarts to _save_ people! And make the dungeons warm, and Myrtle’s loo hasn’t leaked all week! We can actually go in now, and not have to go up to the third floor! “

“I thought you all avoided the place because of Myrtle herself?’ was all he could say.

“Oh, she’s much better these days,” Susan assured him from her chair where she was knitting away at a soft golden mass of wool. “Poor thing; she just wanted to be taken seriously all these years, and to be asked how she died. Can you imagine that, dying like that, _murdered_ , and nobody even caring enough to ask how it happened?”

“She was a Ravenclaw,” Idie Benton said sourly. “If you can’t look it up in a book it doesn’t count, not to a Ravenclaw.”

“That’s stupid,” Susan said firmly. “And there were Slytherins and Gryffs and us too.  Fifty years, and nobody _asked_!”

“We _couldn’t_ ask!” one of the boys protested. “The boys couldn’t, anyway! She lives in the girls’ loo! We’re not supposed to go in there!”

“ _Anyway_ ,”  Hannah overrode them all firmly. “She’s much better now. Still a bit whingy, but not quite so much of a drip.” She giggled at her own wit, then sobered and bounced. “Will you let us know, sir, when you’re scheduled to do the dueling part of your exam? Only Professor Sprout said that she’d talk to the rest of the staff, and see if she could arrange for all of us students to be able to watch. On educational grounds.”

“It won’t be much fun,” Ren warned. “I mean, they’re just going to be throwing spells at me and watching them bounce off. Not nearly as exciting as if I got to throw them back.”

“You can make them bounce though, right?” Justin Finch-Fletchley asked eagerly. “Off of walls and things? If, say, you directed the bouncing spells back at them?”

“That’s hardly sporting, Justin,” Gabe Truman said reprovingly.

“It’s _perfectly_ sporting,” Zacharias Smith said loftily from his corner.  “ _And_ good tactics. If you knock ‘em on their arses, they’ll have to get up and you’ll have just a few seconds more to cast better wards.”

 “It’s a fine line,” Ren admitted as they all looked at him expectantly. “But... He has a point.  They’ll expect me to be gentlemanly about it, but it’s a three hour duel. By hour two-and-a-half, I’ll probably just want a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and a few good hard hugs from the local walls might encourage them to call things off early.”

Smith looked smug. Ren pushed himself up from the wall.

“Okay,” he said. “I gotta run a couple errands, but... We’re good?”

“We are if you are,” Jessamyn Rhodes said, from where she was waving her wand in frustration. “Bugger this.”

“Problem?”

“Patronus week,” she said in disgust.  “I thought I’d give it a go before it starts up, but... Nothing.”

“It helps if you use the proper incantation,” he said. “That’d be ‘Expecto Patronum,’ not ‘bugger  this.’

“Can you show us how? It’ll take just a second.”

Ren hesitated. He hadn’t cast a Patronus since he’d returned two years ago. He was fairly certain, all things considered, that the form would have changed.

“Can you wait a bit?” he said. “The meeting I’ve got now is kind of important.”

“Sure.” Jessamyn waved again. “EXPECTO PATRONUM!”

Nothing happened. She sighed.

“Bugger this,” she said again. “Never mind. I’ve got my broom. If a dementor ever shows up, I’ll just outrun it.”

Ren slipped out of the Sett, distracted, as the children laughed. The barrel door closed quietly behind him. Curious now, he glanced around, and cast the TARDIS warding box around himself before letting his wands slip into his hands. He raised them, and half-closed his eyes.

_Happy thoughts, happy thoughts..._

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

Nothing happened. He lowered his Horntail wands and frowned at them.

“You’re telling me,” he said aloud. “That the changes are so profound that even Harry Potter’s _memories_ don’t work now?”

The wands shrugged at him. Ren stowed them away and dismissed the TARDIS.

“Later,” he said, and (mindful of the fact now that he was going to be fighting a three-hour duel in four days) shook his legs out and took off at a brisk trot down the hall toward the hospital wing.


	4. Is Spread out Against the Sky

 

Sixteen-year-old Jacia  ‘Jax’ King was small: almost as small as Hermione at twelve. Blessed with stunning curves that no robe could hope to mask and light blue, almost ice-colored eyes, her skin was a deep blue-black and her hair a tightly braided halo that rose like a crown above her scalp. Even in his own time, Harry Potter had always had thought her quite one of the most beautiful women he had ever met. As Ren Cartwright, it absolutely broke his heart to see her lying on the hospital bed, swathed in white bandages and half-drunk on the potions that were keeping both the physical pain and the emotional horror at bay.

As Ren approached her bed, though, he could see that she was awake, staring up at the ceiling with her one remaining eye. She’d doubtless been given something to prevent her crying from doing further damage, or from washing out the drops and potions that were now percolating beneath the mass of linen. As he made his way over, he had to wind his way around two solid cubicles’ worth of flowers, candy and cards.  On the table next to her bed was an exquisite, tall arrangement of exotic bell orchids: gold and silver and ivory, filling the air with a delicate sweet fragrance and the soothing chime of music.  Ren didn’t have to read the card to know who they were from. He summoned it discreetly and did anyway.

**Miss King –**

**Don’t give up quite yet. I’m not about to.**

**Neil Cartwright**

Ren sent the card floating back to nestle among the leaves, and pulled up a chair. Jax flicked her eye his way, and turned back to the ceiling.

“Hey,” he said. “How are you doing?”

She said nothing. He touched her shoulder. She flinched away.

“I want to ask you something,” he said. She sneered behind the bandages.

“We know it’s not on a date,” she said. Her voice was hoarse and slurred. “Less you fancy hideous scarred half-blind hags.”

“I don’t,” he said. “ But then, I’ve never ‘fancied’ anybody, as you put it, but my wife - not since we first got together when we were just about your age. And she’s dead now.”

She silenced at that.  Ren shifted.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I think I might have come up with something.”

“It’s no good,” the girl said flatly. “There’s nothing you can do. Professor Snape tried, and Madam Pomfrey, but the damage is just too deep. They even brought in the specialists from St. Mungo’s.”

“The specialists from St. Mungo’s don’t have my particular skill sets. Can I call you Jax? You can call me Ren, at least while we’re talking like this.”

“Don’t tell Rhodes,” she said sardonically.

“Yeah, yeah. How much do you know about runic wards?’

“Not a lot. My optionals are Arithmancy and Spellcrafting. I do that one by remote, since they don’t teach it onsite.”

“Okay. Well, we’ll get to them in a minute, but first... Have you ever made Polyjuice potion?”

“Sure. Tried, anyway. Potions isn’t my best subject.”

“Mine neither.  What can you do.  You know the theory, though, right? That when you ingest it, it wears off after a bit – anywhere from ten minutes to twelve hours, depending on the quality of the ingredients and the skills of the brewer?  And that it does wear off eventually, though, because once ingested your magical core metabolizes – processes – the key ingredients, the way you digest food, and when it burns through those, it becomes hungry for more?”

She nodded minimally. Ren reached into his pocket and withdrew her hairbrush, placing  it in front of her. She looked at him, and it.

“What,” she said. Then... “Where’d you get that? I thought I lost it weeks ago.’

“It was under your bed. One of the house-elves found if for me. Anyway, there’s another factor,” he said. “In how long a dose lasts. It has to do with the extent of the differences between your form and the form you’re aiming for. It takes more energy, for example, to change a man to a woman, or a six footer to a five footer, than it would take to change a woman to another woman of equivalent height.  In your case, in this case, with the hair from your own brush... The hair that was brushed out before your accident... The differences would be absolutely minimal. You’d be changing from the way you look now to the way you looked before. And since the changes are restricted to a relatively small portion of your body... Well. That’s where the runic wards would come in.”

Jax actually struggled to sit up a bit.

“Go on,” she said.

“Wards,” Ren explained. “Whether spell-cast or runic, work one of two ways; they keep things in, or keep things out. A single rune can protect an item, while runic sequences are a series of linked posts that act a fence around a given area . That area can be as big as a city, or as small as a freckle. In your case, the fence I’d build and implement would work to keep the magical regeneration from the ingested Polyjuice – the Polyjuice brewed with your own hair, from before the accident - within, not your whole body, but in the injured portion of your face and eye. Now, I can’t brew for shit,  but the quality of Polyjuice that Gramps and Professor Snape could come up with would change your whole body, not for twelve hours, but closer to a week. If it was contained only within the certain percentage of your body, rather than the whole, the effects would last proportionately longer.  Probably closer to three months per hair.”

She stared at him with her one eye.

“Three _months_?” she repeated.

“Yeah,” he said. “If I ward off that particular area of your face, the area becomes a body within a body – effectively, an absorbed twin.” She grimaced. He shook his head.  “I know it sounds gross, but it’s the most appropriate analogy. Given the similarities, and an established period for your body to adapt to the regular influx of the Polyjuice, we might even be able to  coax your core into believing that any influx developed with fingernail trimmings, say, taken from the rest of your  now-healthy, uninjured body, the part outside the fence, comes from the same, completely uninjured source as the hair we were working with in the first place.  Your core’s ‘eye’  would learn to just skip over the differentials, and see them as irrelevant.”

Her mouth opened slightly.

“You can _do_ that?” she said, shocked.

“Yeah,” he said.  “I really think I can. We have a limited window of time to work with though. Really limited. Your body is in shock right now; your core is staggering; distracted by the curse from Marshmallow’s blood, and the healing spells poured into you. That are still being poured into you. It won’t be for long though, before your core registers the changes you’ve suffered as permanent, and we need to make the Polyjuice part of the treatment before that happens.”

“But it takes a month to brew the potion!”

“Professor Snape’s got some in his stores. We can check the grade, and...” He chewed his lip. “If it’s not good enough... Arrangements can be made.”

“What...”

“We’ve all got a fair amount of credit at the Ministry right now,” he said carefully. “And with all the ICW in town right now, the eyes of the world are on Britain. Fudge really doesn’t want any bad press right now, especially reminders that just because the werewolf problem is effectively solved, the problems associated with werewolf culture... Aren’t. He  just wants to revel, and avoid uncomfortable questions. As the only witness to the events at the Lovegood house, my memories are on record, but they’re private record.  People are going to want to ask me questions off the record, and on the journalistic one, but if I were, say, to tell Fudge that I could minimize the amount of any potentially damaging  revelations there  in exchange for a room that I could ward, brewing supplies, and a time turner that would take a couple of experts back a month to start a particular potion...”

“But if you had a time turner, you could just prevent what happened altogether! Or save Professor Lovegood’s husband altogether!”

Ren shook his head.

“No,” he said. “That’s not the way it works. Once something that significant occurs, it’s got to be done, or the potential for paradox could literally rip a world apart. I can’t go back and change Marshmallow’s trajectory. What I can do is go back and make sure that medicine needed to treat you after the fixed event happens, is available for you after it _does_ happen. No paradox, and since it hasn’t happened yet, we can still make it happen.”

“So if I agree... Somewhere in the Ministry there’s a warded room with the potion available and waiting for you to pick up right now?”

“No. It won’t be until we do it.” He chuckled at her expression of confusion, and waited. Sure enough...

“And what’s the catch?” she said. “There’s always a catch.”

“It’ll affect your appearance.  The fence that I’m talking, the runic fence that blocks off the injured area from the rest– you’ll have to have a tattoo. A permanent one.  You can choose the design, but in the end, it’ll cover a good half your cheek and forehead.”

“ _What_?”

“It can be striking,” he reassured her. “Beautiful, really.  You need to put a lot of thought into the design though, because it’ll be there your whole life.  And you don’t need to worry about the colours either,” he added. “Against the natural colour of your skin. Runic tattoo inks aren’t like regular ones; you can make them in any shade you want, from bright white to darkest black. I’m afraid I can’t give you much time to think about it, but...”

“I don’t need time to think about it,” she cut him off. “Horrific nerve damage, blindness, permanent disfiguring scars, or a pretty, pretty tattoo that will make my prudish beast of a stepmum shit herself in horror? I am _in_!”

He laughed.  She actually grinned a bit at him, then sobered abruptly.

 “Will it hurt?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll have to put you under. The thing is... It’s a layered rune. Once you take the Polyjuice, I’ll have to imprint the bottom layers on the restructured bones. You don’t want to be awake for that, I promise you.”

She nodded. Then...  “Why are you doing this?” she said abruptly. “Really?”

“I’m a nice guy? Oh, and I hang out with Hufflepuffs all day. Some might even say that I am one.”

“They’d be wrong."

“Try to be a bit nicer to them as a whole,” he advised. “They’re a good lot.” She rolled her one eye. He shook his head.

“I killed twelve people a week ago, Jax,” he said quietly. “Before I’d even finished my breakfast.  They were sick as fuck, and more than deserved it... But it’s not an easy thing to live with. It’s why I do love wards, because they can prevent the sick fucks from reaching anybody, and prevent me from having to use my dueling skills to resolve the problem in a more concrete manner. And at the end of the day... It’s the people you go home to who get you through the nights, isn’t it? Hufflepuffs may be a bit goopy, but they’re the last people I’d ever call soft or stupid. It takes a lot of wisdom, courage and yes, applied and determined ambition, to be constantly and consistently kind.”

“We’d be your people,” she said. “We Slytherins. If you’d let us.”

“Why would you want that?’

“Because you killed twelve people a week ago? And they were sick as fuck, and more than deserved it?  We appreciate that sort of thing. The sick fucks are the ones who get in the way of our plans for benevolent world domination, after all.”

“ _Benevolent_ world domination?”

“Happy minions are productive minions,” she intoned.  “Your grandfather has _that_ one down flat, doesn’t he?”

He laughed. “I suppose he does, at that,” he allowed. “Though for the record, he actually is sincere with it.”

“And that just makes him all the more effective in the end, doesn’t it? “

Ren, thinking on Hogwarts’ chronic starry-eyed passion for  his old friend, never mind a certain Room of Requirement’s concerted and constant efforts to rewire all of time and space for his personal convenience, couldn’t exactly argue with her. He shrugged.

 “Uh huh. So... DADA for knowledge, Wards as your first measure of defense, and Dueling for clean up when necessary?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you do belong in Hufflepuff after all,” she conceded. “That sounds like an awful lot of work to be going on with. If you were a Slytherin, you’d pick one, cultivate allies who specialize in the others, take over the world as a team, and still have time left to go shopping with all the money you’d make for hiring out.”

“Sounds like Gramps,” he agreed.

“I hope you don’t give him a discount just because you’re family.”

 “No. I give him a discount because he’s a twelve foot killer bear in Herbologist’s clothing, and he scares the socks, pants _and_ the trousers off of me. He always has, never mind that he just managed the transformation last summer. That being said, there’s a reason I’m only hired on here at Hogwarts as a consultant rather than a full-time teacher. The Board of Governers can’t afford to hire me.”

“What’s the real advantage?”

“Room, board, and one of the most complex wards system in Europe to play with, all without having to spend a fortune for access privileges? Sitting for an International Mastery isn’t cheap, and under normal circumstances, I’d be paying a fee for using the research lab. “

“But they get a revamped ward system after it’s all done!”

“If I do it properly, yes. If I don’t, and they have to hire a real Master to come and fix things where I screw up, they’ll be bankrupting two years of the school budget before the New Year. “

“So the fees they’d ordinarily charge you are basically insurance against the potential expenditure?”

“Got it in one.”

“Huh. You got enough money to pay for it if you do?’

“I will once I get my Grandmastery. Back-up plans again.”

She narrowed her eye at him.

“Pretty sure of yourself.  You’re not even the only two-hander out there. There are at least three more.”

“I know.”

“You did kill the basilisk,” she conceded. “You should get a nice amount for the bounty there.”

“I would, but I’m not keeping it. Half will go to Myrtle Warren’s family for the murder of their daughter, and the other half will go to Hagrid as recompense for being framed.”

 “Uh huh." It wasn't... quite... disparaging. "Can I ask you a question now?'

"Sure?"

“What happened to your cheek? And if you're so good with scars, why don’t you fix it?”

 “I had a run-in with a carnivorous sword-vine in Brazil,’ Ren lied. “A bitchier cousin of the Whomping Willow. They told me that they could get rid of it for me, but I don’t know. I kind of like it. Makes me look a bit more interesting, don’t you think?”

“You want to look interesting, just go around in your leathers a bit.”

“That would only work if I were interested in the kind of woman who was only interested in the one thing.”

“You’re telling me your wife didn’t appreciate it?’

“No, she did, but mostly as a gratifying side-effect to the necessity that I keep in as good as shape as possible so I’d make it home at the end of the day. “

She turned her head slightly at that, to the quietly humming orchids.

“He brought them in,” she said, apropos of nothing in particular.  “Just a couple of hours ago.  I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

“That's not surprising,” Ren said. “They don’t grow in Great Britain. The climate’s all wrong here.”

“So what, he grew them in a greenhouse?”

“No. He’d have had to go back to Brazil to get them. They grow in a very select part of the Amazonian river basin.”

She turned her head fully, her one eye wide in astonishment.

“He went all the way to _Brazil_? In South _America_? To bring me _flowers_?”

“Looks like.”

“But...  An intercontinental portkey, that far, on such short notice... “

“Didn’t we just determine how much of a Slytherin he is, Miss King?” he teased. “He doesn’t work with money. He works with favours.”

“Why would he waste one that big on flowers?”

“He didn’t waste it on flowers,” Ren said. “He called it in for you.”

She reached out and touched one. It chimed sweetly at her.

“Professor Dumbledore wouldn’t have done that,” she said.  “I don’t know anybody who would have done that. Well,” she temporized. “Professor Snape might have, for Professor Shelley. He’s dead gone on her, he is. But not for anybody else.”

“He’s kind of unique,” Ren agreed of Neville, ignoring that last.  “He always has been.”

“Runs in the family,” she said, and then, suddenly... “Don’t you _dare_ feel guilty about those twelve monsters, alright? Just... Don’t you _dare_.”

“Why not?”

“Because they weren’t there to kill that girl,” she said. “Not if they really thought she was Professor Lupin’s daughter.  And they would have taken the Weasley kid along too, because her brother is Potter and Longbottom’s best friend.”

He leaned back in his chair and looked down at her. She glared at him out of her one eye, daring... no, demanding, that he ask the obvious question. He let his wands slide into his sleeves and cast a quick double spell, warding them against sound and sight.

“I don’t suppose,” he said, very quietly indeed. “That you have any names that you could throw at me?”

She hesitated, then nodded toward the card amongst the orchids. He handed it over, and a Muggle pencil. She scribbled hurriedly.

**WALDEN MCNAIR**

**IFOR DRISCOLL**

**DORRIE CARROW**

Her hand slowed. Ren watched, as he always had, in awe at the absolute, if not impassive, courage of the girl before him – the girl, who had, as a woman in his world, led her team of crack hit wizards on the last nest of Dementors in the known world with Neville’s strangest and most accidental discovery in hand. The woman who had, in the end, willingly sacrificed her own soul so that her team would have the time to complete their mission... Harry Potter had never been the only hero in the wizarding world. In the end, there were days he’d known that he was the least of them.

Jax King scrawled a final name hastily and shoved it back at him, without looking at him. He looked down at it, and pressed his fingers to his temple.

**CALUM KING**

He flicked his fingers at the card. The words disappeared. He set it back carefully amongst the orchids.

“Don’t you dare feel guilty,” she said again, and she was not talking to him now, Ren knew. “You just... You did what you had to do. That sort of thing... The things that they were going to do to her... Them... They’re  wrong. Some things just... _are_ , you know? And if you’re ever in a place where you can do something about them, you have to do them. No matter what.”

He took her hand.

“I will die,” he said. “Before I’ll ever reveal my sources, Miss King.”

“Don’t do that,” she said, recovering herself. “You’re the only good thing that’s happened to the Hufflepuffs in a thousand years. They’ll snot it up for the next thousand if you deprive them of the opportunity to take the credit for your accomplishments, never mind that sweet, sweet arse of yours.”

Ren snorted with laughter.

“They’re really not that bad,” he said, and got to his feet. “Alright. I gotta go. I’ll be back tomorrow night, though, and ...” He glanced around. “What happened to Ginny Weasley? I thought she was in for the next couple of days?”

“Her folks came and got her,” she said. “About ten minutes before you arrived. Something about one of her brothers, and an emergency at St. Mungo’s.”

“St.... You’re talking about Charlie?”

“Yeah. I guess. The Quidditch player, who went to work with dragons. I didn’t catch much, just her dad saying that some sort of test results came back and they all needed to get over there right away.  They took the whole pile of them through the floo over there.“ She tilted her head toward Pomfrey’s office, and the fireplace. “Do you know him, then? Sorry, didn’t mean to be the bearer of ba...” She jumped violently as a crack sounded, and a flash, and he disappeared right in front of her.

“Guess you do,” she said aloud.  “Also, the floo’s right _there_. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but there’s no need to show off for me.”

“Jax?” Poppy poked her head around the curtain. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she said, and sat up. “Madam Pomfrey? Did Master Cartwright talk to you about his proposed treatment?”

Poppy Pomfrey hesitated, then pulled up the chair Ren had just vacated.

“He did,” she said. “Well, indirectly. He discussed it with Professor Snape and the Headmaster, and they talked to me.”

“What do you think? Do you think it could work?”

“The Polyjuice should work,” she said. “No question there.  You will run out of hair eventually, though, so that will only carry you so far. The runic sequences he’s talking on, on the other hand... I just don’t know, dear.  I’ve never in my life heard of anyone using them - sequences - like that before. They’re generally used on things, you know, not people.  Even the most advanced research on the subject only incorporates single runes or sigils to do things like encourage circulation to the extremities.”

Jax sat up even further.

“Are there,” she said. “ _Any_ other options? Any at all?”

Pomfrey took her hand.

“If it were me,” she said, obviously avoiding the direct question. “If it were me, dear... I’d take the chance.”

“Because I have nothing to lose?’

“No,” the healer said. “Because when it comes right down to it... I don’t think that that young man takes chances. Not, as the Hat said, with the people he cares about.”

“He doesn’t even _know_ me! How can he care about me?”

“Some people just have a gift that way,” Pomfrey said. “And it is a gift, you know? A hard and painful one: one that drives them to the brink of hell more often than not, and some days over... But there it is.”

Jax’s eye turned back to the orchids.

“The Headmaster,” she said. “Went all the way to Brazil to get me flowers. He called in a favour, and he doesn’t know me either.”

“He understands his job,” Pomfrey said, not without a bit of asperity. “It’s rather nice, I must say, to have someone running the show who takes things seriously.” She picked up the hairbrush on the table, and the three small vials beside it. “Ah. Good. He dropped them off.”

“What is it?”

“Polyjuice,” she said.  “Professor Snape said he’d send Master Cartwright what he had in store, before starting the new batch.” She popped open a vial, dropped a single hair in, recorked it, and set it aside. It popped and blurbed and turned a brilliant emerald green, infused, surprisingly, with ice blue bubbles.  Jax watched as she cast a sterilizing charm on her hands. “Now. Let’s get rid of these bandages and we’ll see just how mouldy those lacewings were. If you can keep your form for more than six hours, he says he can use the second vial to put in the preliminary runes tomorrow morning before classes...”


	5. Like A Patient Etherized Upon A Table

**St. Mungo's  
**

_Idiotidiotidiotidiotidiotidiotidiotid_

One of the greatest disadvantages of life as a career Auror was the constant and unavoidable need to apparate. From the day that the sixteen-year-old Harry Potter had first experienced the particular mode of travel at Albus Dumbledore's side, no one in his life, not even his Mind Healer, had ever suspected just how much he despised it - nor that there had been more than one occasion where he'd seriously, seriously considered giving over his job just so that he would never have to put himself through the very particular kind of hell ever again.

_iotidiotidiotidiotidiotidiotidiotidi_

That being said, the modifications to the anti-apparition wards at Hogwarts that allowed Ren Cartwright to crack in and out at whim weren't modifications to the wards at all. They were a simple and very effective cheat. As long as he kept a sample of floo powder on himself (dusted over the appropriate runes inscribed on the soles of his feet), he could, with the appropriate silent word, tap into the ley-lines that fed the public floo network, trigger the runes again to act as a temporary grate, and ride the back of the proverbial and completely untraceable magical cable car to his destination.

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Harry had never informed anyone of the particular development, of course. The Ministry would have outlawed it the day it went public, and hired people to find ways to counter it, and neither measure was what the Hero of the Wizarding World  considered in his best interest. He didn't even feel guilty about it, since his major motivation was not to cheat anyone, but simply to avoid puking his guts up. Details of that sort of habit got out really fast, and not only did you risk dragon-sized quantities of piss from your mates and colleagues, you also risked your enemies anticipating and taking advantage.

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Too, it was not a skill that he necessarily wanted advertised in this new world - not as a non-Hogwarts-specific modification, anyway. Fortunately for him, this version of St. Mungo's actually allowed apparition inside the building. There were even handy self-scouring buckets scattered about the allocated room, and an alert button that notified the Welcome Witch at the front desk in the unfortunate event that any injured-and-incoming splinched their tongues or vocal cords, rendering them incapable of calling for help upon arrival. Ren, fortunately, managed to avoid that, but _un_ fortunately, the magical boundaries that prevented the incoming patients and visitors from colliding with each other in the event of simultaneous arrivals didn't apply to his doctored feet. He landed squarely, one foot in a cauldron of sick, just as its donor stood back and wiped his mouth. Such was his distress that he barely noticed, just hauled himself out, cast an automatic _scourgify_ , and took off running. Less than a minute and a half later he was skidding into Charlie’s room, only to be met with politely blank stares from the family-plus-Hermione, all perched on various surfaces about his room.

_iotidiotidiotidi..._

“Master Cartwright?” Arthur said cautiously, standing as the obviously panicked young man fought to regain his composure. “Is everything alright?”

_Oops._

“Er,” Master Cartwright said as he remembered in the split second that, in this form, he didn't, in fact, actually know Charlie. “I. Er. Was visiting Jax King. She said there was an emergency with Ginny?  And that you brought her here?”

Molly promptly (and thankfully, from his point of view) burst into tears and hurled herself at him to hug him.  The gathered Weasleys all rolled their eyes tolerantly. All of them but Bill anyway: he just reached over to pull her away.

“Get _off_ , Mum!” he snapped. “We know you’re grateful to him; we all are, but that’s no excuse to maul him!” Even in his distraction, Ren was startled. It sounded, not just sharp or embarrassed, but downright hostile. Even more puzzlingly... No one else seemed to notice.

“It’s alright,” he reassured him, and the abruptly flustered and embarrassed Molly. “Erhm. Is everything okay, then?’

“Everything’s fine,” Ginny said from her perch on the windowsill. “I’m fine.” She flushed brilliantly as he looked over at her, and promptly retreated in confusion behind the curtain. Ren had  the rather dismaying feeling that her crush on Harry had transferred, on the occasion of his saving of her life, directly over to him as her perceived saviour... He had to repress the sudden urge to check her elbows for butter.

“Sorry for the wasted trip, mate,” another voice said. "It's all on me, I'm afraid. You’re Neil’s grandson, right?”

Ren turned again - and nearly strained something stifling his absolute shock. He’d seen the young man sitting on the edge of the bed less than three weeks ago, and the difference was nothing short of appalling. He’d been thin enough then, but now  he had to be close to a stone lighter. His cheekbones jutted prominently from the once cheerfully round face and his Muggle clothes - jeans and a blue and green checked button-down - hung on him as on a hanger.  His ginger and gold-streaked hair lay lank against his skull; his hands were trembling slightly, and the bones in his wrists were clearly visible.

 “Yup. Charlie, right? It’s good to meet you,” Ren managed, and schooling his features rigidly, took his hand. It offered him a bit of comfort; it was cool to the touch, not hectic with fever, and the grip, despite the tremor, was firm. Too, the young dragon-wrangler's mouth was relaxed, not set in pain, and though he looked tired, there was no indication of the kind of absolute exhaustion that should have accompanied such a significant deterioration. “He told me about you too. How are you feeling these days?”

“A lot better than I was this time last week,” the patient said.  “When they were assessing my progress.  I did get some good news back there, though, which is why the whole family’s here – they’re letting me go home.”

 _Letting... Like_ this _? Are they_ crazy _?_

“Yeah? That’s great. Gramps told me a bit about your case;  the treatments are working, then?”

“I know  I don't look it, but... Yeah. So far so good,” Charlie said. Everyone beamed.  Everyone but, back in his corner, Bill... A flicker of... something... passed over his face, quickly smoothed. Ren’s gut twisted.

 _I should have come sooner, I should have... Gin told me; she_ told _me;  I can’t believe I_ forgot _, I am such an_ idiot.

 “Everything they’ve done has stuck properly,” the young man continued.  “Though that being said, 'home' is all relative. It’s two months in London Muggleside for me, away from all magical influence so that the glue will set without interference. Bill’s rented us a nice flat, so now it’s just learning all the take-away numbers he’s dug up.” He grinned. “And of course, how to use a telephone.”

“You’ll do brilliantly,” Arthur said, collecting himself.  “And aren't we rude, and doesn’t this work out well? We haven’t had a chance to thank you properly, Master Cartwright, for what you did for Ginny. We can’t, of course, but in the meantime... Would you join us for dinner? We were going to go out as a family to celebrate, to a Muggle restaurant that one of your new colleagues recommended. He and his fiance are going to join us as well.”

“Professor Lupin and Professor Black,” Ron said helpfully. “They’re going to fill us in on how Harry and Nev are doing.”  He was standing in a corner beside Hermione, not – quite – holding her hand. That was only, though, because hers was already holding a book.

“Oh,” Ren said, and then, appropriately awkwardly...  “It’s just Ren. And thank you, but I don’t want to intrude on a family occasion.”

“Intrude? “ Arthur looked genuinely bemused. “You saved Ginny’s life! I hate to tell you this, man, but that _makes_ you family.  No, don’t argue. You’re coming. Now, let me introduce you to everyone; you’ve met the twins and Ron and Hermione, of course, and you’ve managed with Charlie... That leaves my eldest son Bill. He works as a curse-breaker for Gringotts."

“Nice to meet you,” Ren greeted Bill. Bill said nothing, just nodded briefly and came over to help Charlie into a Muggle wheelchair.  Ren’s alarm increased.

 _He can’t even walk properly, and they’re_ releasing _him?  What kind of Healers_ are _they, don’t they know..._

He cut himself off abruptly.  Of course they didn’t know. They didn’t know... Anything. Charlie’s case was absolutely singular; there were no other early-onset magical cancer cases that had ever been detected to act as precedents. Even Neville wouldn’t have known what he was seeing; he’d attended their counterpart’s funeral, but before that, he’d barely known Charlie during the war, if at all, and as the latter had never had children who’d gone through Hogwarts, no reason to follow up the extremely peripheral passing acquaintance.

 _What kind of treatments... What have they been_ doing _to him? He looks like he’s lost a year’s worth of ground in three weeks! At this rate of degeneration it won’t be six months before..._

Percy stuck his head back in.

“They’re on their way, Dad,” he reported, and straightened in surprise as he recognized the newcomer. “Master Cartwright! What brings you by?”

 “I stopped by the hospital wing to check on your sister, and Jax King told me you’d all come to drag her to St. Mungo’s. I. Erhm. May have overreacted a bit.”

“Oh dear,” Molly said. “Well, it has been a stressful week. The boys tell me you’ve been very productive with it, though?”

“I’ve kept busy,” he said.

“Sometimes it’s best that way,” She took his hand, squeezing it, and glancing around...  “I don’t suppose we could presume on you, dear, to lend us your expertise in Muggle clothing? Charlie and Bill are alright, but the rest of us could use a bit of help with our glamours.”

“Sure, of course,” he said, relieved for the distraction. 

“Not in _here_ , Mum!” Bill’s voice was even sharper. Again she didn’t seem to notice his hostility.

“I _know_ , Bill,”  was all she said.  “You don’t mind if we step outside the room with you, one at a time, so that the excess magic won’t affect Charlie, do you, Master Cartwright?”

“It’s just Ren,” he said again. “No, of course not.” He glanced back over his shoulder though as Fred and George had bounced out ahead of him... Charlie just offered him that resigned, crooked little smile and waggled his fingers at him a bit before turning back to his eldest brother, now bundling him into a warm tan coat. By the time they were all glamoured, the others had arrived. Fifteen minutes later and they were all bundled into Muggle taxis, heading off for their first experience at a ‘real Muggle restaurant.’

In the back of the second taxi next to Remus and Sirius, Ren stole another look at Bill, seated next to the driver. His hair was yet pulled back in the popular style of the times: a neat ponytail, but his clothes were a bit more conservative than Ren remembered, and the fang in his ear had been replaced by a simple diamond stud. The battered denims, t-shirts and dragon leather that his counterpart had favoured were gone as well, replaced by tailored wool trousers, a pale yellow button-down shirt that hugged his trim hips,  a smart short waistcoat , and fine water-proof boots. Over all of that, he wore a dark blue knee-length pea-coat  and cobalt silk scarf,  and dark blue Muggle gloves... All in all, and never mind the family’s recent change in circumstance, this version of the Heir of House Weasley didn’t radiate ‘cool’ quite as much as ‘casually sophisticated’.

Casually sophisticated, and from the tight, near-locked set of his jaw and the lack of his relatives’ apparent notice or concern on his attitude considered... Chronically pissed.

“Moony?” Ren murmured, casting a quick ‘Muffliato’ (well away from Charlie) as they piled out of the cab. “Is it just me, or does  Bill seem in a bad mood to you?”

“Mm?” Remus looked over, confirming his theory with his next words. “A bit, maybe, but I wouldn’t worry about it.  I don’t know him well myself, but the other teachers have said that he was always a bit of a brooder. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just... He was always the really relaxed type at home.” Even as he spoke,  he heard Ron mutter to Hermione.

“...Supposed to be a _grown up_. Don’t see why he can’t at least try to be nice for once, and no one’s going to make him sit next to her anyway. That’s all we need: another screaming row between the two of them when we’re supposed to be...”

“There you go, mate.” Bill’s voice wasn’t exactly cheerful, but his body language, as he shouldered his brothers rudely aside to help Charlie out of the car and into the chair, was quintessentially tender and gentle - as tender and gentle as Ren had ever seen any parent with his newborn child. Charlie smiled up at him.  The obvious love between the two brothers, at least, was breathtaking. “In you get. Alright then?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said, and as they passed by, Ren heard him say in a low tone... “Be a good bloke and sit between me and Mum, will you? She’s claimed the spot, but she’ll give it over for a chance to win you over, and I don’t need her next to me noticing I’m two breaths away from sicking everything up.”

“You don’t ask for much, do you, Charles?’  
  
“Please, Billy? I’m not ready to...” Charlie clamped his jaw shut as their father came over to take the handles of the chair.

“Round the side, then,” he directed happily. “They’ve got a special ramp instead of stairs; it’s fantastic!”

“This way, Master Cartwright.” Hermione beamed at him, appearing at his side. “Oh, this is so nice! I haven’t had Chinese food in so long, and Ron’s never had it at all! “

“You’re in for a treat then.” Ren smiled, distracted.

“Yeah,” Sirius chimed in. “Don’t let the decor worry you. The tacky factor is inversely proportionate to the quality of the egg rolls.”

“Egg rolls?” Ron repeated curiously.

“You’ll love them,” Ren reassured him. He’d been expecting, honestly, a bit of active resentment sent his way on the boy’s part for his claiming of the credit for the slaying of the basilisk, but once again, when he’d approached the two of them the day before to render his belated apologies for his appropriation of their triumphs, had been reminded forcefully (and pleasantly) that this was not, in fact ‘his’ Ron.

“No worries,” the youngest Weasley son had reassured him as they'd made their way toward the front doors of the castle and Greenhouse One. “It’s not like it was some great battle; we just brought the rooster down the slide, pinched its bum a bit to make it squawk, and the great dirty thing just rolled right over and kicked it. Not literally kicked it; it’s not got legs, but you know what I mean. No epic story for the ages there, never mind the joke that that Skeeter cow would have made of it all.  Oh, and then there’s what Mum would have done to me if she were to hear we went down with a weapon based on the write-up from a cuddly toy.” He actually looked a bit embarrassed at that.  “ _That_ could have a real bit of an arse-up if the writer hadn’t actually known what he was talking about there, couldn’t it? I could get straight Os from now all the way through Healer school and she’d never let me on a broomstick again in my life, much less buy me one.”

“I can’t say that my parents would be chuffed to get that kind of report either,” Hermione admitted. “Or our house-mates, for the empty hour glass. Really, sir,  we’re just feeling really lucky that there was another Parselmouth about to take the bla—Er. Credit. “

“And why do you assume I’m a Parselmouth? That wasn’t in my C.V, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t, but you’d have to be, wouldn’t you? Finding the Chamber through the ley-lines is one thing; opening it quite another, and if Professor Black really does intend on doing tours there, there’s got to be someone about who can manage it again. Don’t worry, we’re not going to tell anybody. And it’s not like you _couldn’t_ have killed it,” she added. “I’m sure you _could_ have, and that does make a difference in terms of undue assignation and/or appropriation of accolades." Her vocabulary, Ren reflected, was, if possible, even more astounding than it had been in his home dimension. "I mean, you're an International Level duelist, and an International Level DADA expert, and I’m sure you’re going to do just as brilliantly on your Warding exams too.” She’d patted his arm at that absently. Ren had had to bite his tongue nearly in two to prevent the guffaw.

“Did she not punish you at all?” he’d asked instead, feigning bemusement. “Professor McGonagall, I mean?”

“Yes,” Ron said, and then, conscientiously... “Well, no. Not exactly.  We reckon she didn’t feel qualified to do the job since she must have already put in her notice about stepping down, and just told Professor Lupin and Professor Black that they got to do the honours because they’re our Heads of House.  They told us that we have to spend two hours each every Saturday till Christmas cleaning the Owlery. “

“And your little escapade with the hell hound?”

“Lines,” Hermione said gloomily.  She didn’t seem to question how he knew about that. “Three thousand of them. Each. ‘Cuddly toy write-ups are no substitute for the research material available to any Hogwarts resident in the onsite library, “ she and Ron recited together, “nor is being sorted into Gryffindor any excuse for a) the conscious and deliberate renunciation of garden-variety common sense, b) the breaking of rules obviously set forth to protect you from your own unfortunate lack of self-preservation, or c) forgetting the fact that you are, in fact, and despite the obviously lucky centaur-shoes lodged up your arses, first year students with the collective and effective practical magical training of a mango.’”

“Three _thousand_? And that’s all one sentence?”

“Professor Lupin is a very articulate man. It’s not so bad; we have the rest of the school year to do them. And it’s doing wonders for our handwriting anyway.  I’m only  a hundred sixty four lines in, and I’m down to half the number of blotches.”

“We got off dead easy, really,” Ron agreed. “We could have lost points or gotten those reports sent home to our parents like Hermione said. And alright, we do have detentions for the classes we skived, but the professors there just said they’d just let us write our lines in them too.  Even Professor Snape, though he said he’s going to check each line individually, and for each missed comma or misspelled word there’ll be a filthy cauldron to scrub.”

“Why _do_ you think none of them did tell your parents?” Ren asked curiously.

Hermione fidgeted.

“I think that was because of Harry,” she admitted. “Only the Chamber of Secrets needs a Parselmouth to open it again, doesn’t it, and I don’t know what it’s like in America, but here in Britain... It’s not thought on as exactly a _good_ thing, is it?  I mean, you’re a DADA expert:  they probably won’t bother you too much about it, never mind the dueling, but  if it got out that Harry is one, on top of his father being an ex-werewolf, and his other father being a convicted felon, however unfairly condemned...  It’s not like we got _hurt_ , after all,” she added defensively. “We didn’t. We _helped_. Only having a hell hound and basilisk in a school aren’t exactly good things either, are they?”

“Not particularly,” Ren had agreed. “Mind you this, though; it’s the only time I plan to take the fall for you. Next time it’s points down all around, and your parents will be hearing about it. I can’t speak for Professor McGonagall, but Gramps is a real bear about that kind of thing.”

“Ooh, I just love his ears!” she said with enthusiasm.  Ren’s lips had twitched again. If this version of Ron was bemusingly sensitive, this version of Hermione, while as sharp and formidably intellectual as ever, was, on the purely social level, rather endearingly scatter-brained... More than one of her professors had noted that if she were to ever manage the Animagus transformation, she’d probably turn out as an especially excitable and distracted species of squirrel. “Did he tell you we’ve met him before, when we were visiting Ron’s brother in hospital? He was ever so nice to us then, and we were ever so pleased when he showed here, and...”

“We’re going to be ever so late for class if we don’t hurry up,” Ron said firmly to her, and escorted her off even more firmly, waving. “Good to see you back up and about, Prof... Master Cartwright. Come by the Gryffindor common room any time; there’s always someone hanging about who’ll be happy to let you in.”

 “Nice kid,” Neville, or rather Neil, had observed as he came up behind him. “Sweet.  Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“Wonder... What?”

“Just what it is, really, that goes into making a person the person they become?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it was the cuddly toy,” he mused. “The basilisk. Same thing happened back in our world, yeah, and Arthur tore a strip out of Fred’s left buttock, remember, for attempting to force Ron to make the Unbreakable Vow...  But there was no cuddly toy, or active reassurance or defense from Molly that I ever remember him mentioning. He was just left with the memories of what he would interpret as a distant and distracted mother.” He pondered a moment longer, rather obviously, and shook himself briskly. “You sort things out with Sirius?”

“Yeah,” Ren said. “And if that was a hint to get things straightened with my own mum, that’s not in your jurisdiction, Headmaster.”

“No,” Neville agreed. “It’s not.” He’d slung an arm about his shoulders as they’d walked down the hall. Ren eyed his arm a bit sourly.

“Taking this grandparental thing a bit seriously, aren’t you?” he asked. 

“If I were taking it seriously, I’d turn you over my knee for scarpering off on me this week the way you did without leaving a message.”

“What, the hour-by-hour signs of active upgrades to the wards didn’t count? And you knew where I was.”

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t worry, mate, and don’t. And you’re a grown man. It’s a fine line, you know?”

“And killing twelve people my first day on the job wasn’t part of the plan?”

Neville had stopped in his tracks and looked down at him.

“You don’t actually think that I think less of you for that, do you?” he said quietly. “Me, of all people?’

“No, I...” Ren's tongue tangled. In the moment, his cheeks burned, and his eyes stung bitterly.

“Remus may have killed Wurtenburg,” the Headmaster said, even more quietly. “In Edinburgh, Harry. You do know, though, don’t you, who killed the other two?”

Ren wiped his eyes with his hand. Neville raised his right hand. A seven inch claw, thick as a cigar, sprang forth, dark and deadly, in the place of his index finger.

“Right between the eyes, mate,” he said. “And not one pang of guilt. Not _one_. That was the first. The second... “ A whole handful of claws sprang forth. He lowered the handful to belly level, and mimed a plunge, twist and yank. “Our Animagus forms are a reflection, when it comes right down to it, of who we are. What do you think that my ability to shift to a twelve foot, hundred forty stone iconic natural killer really says about me? Why do you think I insisted to Gran that she get me registered?” He looked down again. “Or why, back in our world... I turned away from the Aurors as a career before I ever made through my first year, and went back to tending flowers?”

Ren blinked.

“I forgot,” he said. “It’s been so long... I forgot that you were on that track for a few months as well.” And he had.  By the time he’d got through boot camp, almost a year to the day of the final battle after registering that January, Neville had already left. He’d given it a go, from the September to that same April, and the three months’ difference had meant they’d not been in the same training squadron, nor crossed paths more than three or four times in the halls.

“I was,” Neville  said. “Yes. And then... I wasn’t. They suggested...” His lips quirked. “That I lean on my dignity.”

“They kicked you out?”

“Not exactly. They suggested I consider another career path. I wasn’t unstable – the Mind Healers made that very clear – but once they realized that I remembered Crouch and the Lestranges’ visit to the family homestead, they reckoned that there was no point in aggravating the memory.  Inspiration is one thing. They didn’t want to see it evolve into rationalization.”

“Do you think it might have happened?”

“Does a bear shit in the Forbidden Forest?” Neville said rather dryly.  “No, don’t bother.  That one’s free. He does when he’s had a bellyful, and bears are always, always, _always_ hungry.”

The claws retracted. They began to walk again.

“If I’d known all this,” Ren said. “Before, I would have brought you take-away from work.”

“Not the same as home cooking,” Neville said. “But I appreciate the thought. Well, Beorn does.  He’s saving it up though, for now, for the day he gets his teeth into the former resident Dark Wankers.” He retracted his claws and patted his flattening belly.

“You’re not planning on sharing?”

“I’m not the one who requested the cosmic make-over, mate. I like my Animagus form.”

“You really are scary,” Ren observed. “Does McGonagall have _any_ idea what she’s getting into?”

“Why don’t you ask her? You’re my grandson; you’re entitled to ask her her intentions.”

“I don’t want to know her intentions. Or yours. Or Cousin Augusta’s, and honestly, was she  always that obvious back home?”

“No, but then I wasn’t seventy three and an eminently eligible bachelor back home.”

“Hannah’s still here,” he pointed out. Neville gave him a cross-eyed look.

“She’s _eleven_ ,” he said plainly. “I haven’t been eleven for a hundred twenty eight years, never mind what I looked like when we got back.  Also, she’s not my Hannah. My Hannah’s waiting for me, and in the meantime, I know damned well – we both know damned well – that she’d kick my arse if I didn’t take the opportunity to explore the new opportunities around me.”

“You really like her?” Ren ventured after a moment. “McGonagall, I mean? I mean...Like her, like her?”

“Didn’t I just say that I’m not eleven anymore? She’s a very intelligent, talented and attractive witch, and yes, we talked about it while you were holing up this week. We’ve made no decisions; things are still a bit hectic right now, but you might want to go back and re-read that toast she made in Caithness. She wasn’t just quoting it at you, you know?”

“I dunno,” Ren said. “Maybe it’s just... I can’t imagine ever being with anybody but Gin.”

“That’s because you never _were_ with anyone but Gin. Hannah and I didn’t get married till we were past thirty, and neither of us were pining after each other in the meantime. The experience of the practical differential does make the difference.”

Ren hadn't really thought any more about that at the time, but now, in the parking lot of the grungy strip that hosted his current destination, his eyes fell again on Ginny. She jogged lightly beside Fred and George, demonstrating enthusiastically the movements of what he immediately recognized as her trademark spell - the Bat Bogey hex. He smiled a little at the sight - then did a double-take. She was miming with her left hand, not her right. He moved a little closer. There was something else too. It had niggled vaguely, as it had with Alicia Spinnet, because again, it had to do with her hair. It only took him a second to pinpoint it.

_It's parted on the left. Gin was right-handed. Her hair parted on the right._

Ren looked at the twins again. Some identicals, he knew, were born mirrors.   His Fred and George had not been...  These two were not... But some were.  There were theories, he knew, that most left-handed children had originally been twins.

_But my wand went off for us!_

His wand, he reminded himself, also had a rather perverse sense of humour - and there never was a Horntail who'd lived who wasn't a big drama queen.

He should feel grieved, Ren knew, at the  realization that his version of Gin had never lived here. Never would.  Instead, he just felt suddenly and immensely relieved.

_She was original. Always the original. And if she had had a twin too, that never made it..._

_It's only right that there are worlds where that twin gets her chance too._

He followed the others through the swinging doors with deeply mixed feelings, but at the same time, an oddly lighter heart.

 

**The Lotus Garden Chinese Restaurant**

 

“Wednesday?” Remus blinked at him in dismay.  “ _This_ Wednesday? As in four days from now?”

“Yep.” Ren accepted the platter of dumplings passed his way by the scratched, lemon-yellow tablesful of Weasleys. “The list of testing sites should be waiting for me when I get back to the castle. Chuck me an egg roll there, would you, Sirius?”

Sirius, seated opposite and two cracked plastic chairs down, chucked obligingly. “And you’re sure you don’t need the week off?” he asked. “I think I can safely speak for all of the teachers when I say that we’d be more than happy to accommodate as substitutes in exchange for complimentary front-row seats at the Invitationals in Dublin.”

 “Nah. I’ll be fine.”

“I can’t wait to hear the screaming down at Gringotts tomorrow,” Bill said with relish. Despite his proximity to his mother, his mood seemed to have improved slightly - probably because everyone, Molly included, was now completely concentrated on Ren. “It’s going to be epic.  Not to give anything away, but they’ve been working up something really special for the occasion down in Rio. Potential International Wards Masters don’t come along every day, and they were hoping to cover some of the costs there through offering up the site for your examinations - and four-to-six days notice when they were expecting another two months is _not_ going to make them happy.”

“Not my problem. I’ve paid my fees, _and_ read the contract, and any extra costs arising from lack of ability to accommodate on the Masteries Board’s part after I’ve fulfilled my fiscal and legal obligations are on their heads.  As long as I take the tests before the new year, on however short notice, I’m not out another penny.”

“It’s not as if you can’t afford it,” Sirius pointed out.

“That’s not the point.” Ren licked plum sauce off of his hand. “The point is that they know I can afford it, and they’re trying to swizzle me.”  

“Swizzle,” Arthur repeated.

“Cheat,” he translated.

“Ah.” He sampled a bit of gingered beef and broccoli. “My word. This _is_ rather nice, isn’t it? Here, Ron; try a bit.” Ron pushed over his piled plate; his father added it to the heap.

“Are we going to get to watch?” he asked, his mouth full.

“The duel, yeah,” Ren said.  “I’m pretty sure my House has already put in the petition there, and Professor Flitwick will be called in as a second, so the Ravenclaws will want to watch as well.”

“We’ll all be called in as seconds,” Remus said. He hadn’t spoken much , but his agitation of the week preceding seemed to be calming.  Ron paused, spring roll at his lips.

“All of you?” he repeated. “How many people will you have coming at you?’

“As many as I can keep up with,” Ren said. “They’ll start me off with one and keep adding to the pile till I break.”

“So like...”

Ren pondered that around a mouthful of noodle.

“I haven’t dueled with any of the primaries, of course,” he said. “But then again, none of them but Professor Flitwick have ever been featured in write-ups on the international circuit.  So... I’d say... All of them?”

“All of them?”

“Primaries and seconds,” he confirmed.  Percy lowered his fork.

“That’s at least thirty,” he said. “You can take on thirty practiced witches and wizards on your own?”

Charlie looked faintly nauseated with envy.

“I can’t believe I can’t come to see it,” he moaned.  “Or even see it in a pensieve. “

“It’s not like he’ll actually be fighting,” Ginny said. “Just blocking them. “

“Bit more to it than that,” Ron said. “Thirty of them, he’ll have to take out a few just to give himself time to set up his defenses properly.  Do you know any of their styles?”

“Mm,” Ren said vaguely.  Bill actually laughed.

“He’s not going to tell us, Ron,” he said. “Not with three of his opponents right here.”

“Three?”

“Yeah.  Black, Lupin, and me." He paused, his next words a bit reluctant. "The goblins might call in Mum too, if I suggest it. You want in, Mum?”

"Why, so you can see her go down?" Ron muttered. Hermione elbowed him. Hard.

“Oh, Bill. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve dueled properly?”

“Mum could have been a Master too,” Ginny informed Ren. “Only she got pregnant with Bill, and kept on going. We figured it was only a matter of time after I went to Hogwarts that Professor Dumbledore would call her in for the DADA position.”

“Really?” Ren said with interest. “Would you have taken the position, Mrs. Weasley?”

“Molly, dear. Oh, I don’t know,” she said.  “Anything’s possible, I suppose. “

“Have you ever thought of going back into training?” he asked. “For that Mastery?”

She hesitated. Her children sat up.

“Mum?” Fred said.

“I hadn’t,” she said finally. “But after this last week or two, and poor Xenophilius...  And I certainly don’t blame Harry and Neville, or you, Remus, so get that self-reproachful look off your face right now – I’ve thought about it. “ She put her chopsticks down.  “Your father’s heard a few rumours at the Ministry too, and ...” She glanced around. “It’s very unofficial, but you all need to be on your guards... It looks like Pettigrew has escaped from Azkaban.”

Dead silence fell. Ron looked vaguely sick.

“I want a cat,” he said. “A great, feral vicious cat, Mum, for my dorm room. Can I get one, tonight?”

“Of course, Ronnie.” She patted his hand. “My point is, is that your father and I... I know you all work very hard, and we’re very proud of you... But if you were all to work harder at certain of your subjects than others... DADA would be an excellent choice.”

The rest of the evening proceeded in a thankfully peaceful, if not exactly quiet manner.  At the end of it all, Ren had taken the minotaur by the (to him, anyway) very obvious horns, and approached Bill and Charlie as they waited for their taxi after the others had all apparated away.

“Look,” he’d said, and paused. Bill had eyed him warily. Charlie didn’t have the energy; the last of it had gone with his departed relatives. “I’m not going to say anything, I promise, to anyone, but...”

The two men had said nothing.

“I know what it’s like,” he said. “To have a difficult family. Especially a difficult mother.  I get why you don’t want to worry them. But if there’s anything I can do...”

“You got a cure lying about?” Bill said. It wasn’t exactly snappish. “Professor Triple-Mastery?”

“Dash says to tell you that you can trust me,” he said, not to Bill, but to Charlie.  “He said to tell you that. To use that name.”

Charlie looked up at him.

“Your wife died,” he said. “I read it in the Prophet. Didn’t say what it was from. Was it cancer too?”

“No,” Ren said. “But she isn’t the only person I’ve lost. “

“D’you think you can help me?’

He hunkered before him in the chair, looking him straight in the eye.

“I don’t know,” he said. “If you’ll let me... If you’ll trust me... I want to try.”

“He’s got healers,” Bill said roughly. “And if this works...”

“It’s not going to work,” Ren said, without looking at him. “It’s not working, is it, Charlie?’

There was a long pause.

“No,” Charlie said. He looked down at his lap. His ginger-and-gold lashes were wet again in the dull orange lamplight of the street.  “No. I reckon... They haven’t said. I don’t even know if they know. But _I_ know. I know it’s not.. I just... Know.” Bill staggered as if punched in the gut, and sat down hard on the curb.

“They don’t know, you’re right.” Ren said quietly. “And even if they did... They don’t have the context to understand what they’re doing wrong.”

“And you do?”

“I have a theory, yeah.  They’ve been treating your symptoms like they were the problem, and ignoring the fact that the dragon’s still there, sitting inside you and poisoning their every effort even as they make them.“

Bill looked up at that.

“I don’t...” Charlie looked absolutely exhausted. “I’m sorry, can you be a bit more specific?”

“The wand is gone, but the curse that caused your cancer is still there – and it’s been absorbing and twisting the very magic that your Healers have been using to treat you,” Ren said, and with sudden and absolute clarity, even as he spoke the words, he knew -  he _knew_ – that he was right. “The treatment that they’re giving you, by magic, has been providing it food. The treatments, the potions... Even the magical inhibitors... They’re magically based. Magic to shut down magic.  It all twists back. And becomes twisted.”

The young man in the chair stared at him.

“There’s nothing for it, then,” he said at last. “Is there? There’s no way to shut down my core without all that.”

“No way that they know,” Ren said. “Do you trust me, Charlie?”

He rubbed his eyes with a thin hand.

“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t... I don’t know you.”

Ren waited.

“Bill,” Charlie said. “What do you think?”

“I think you need to get home to bed,” Bill said. Sitting outside the glow of the lamp-post, he sounded as if he were crying. “It’s late.”

Charlie rubbed his eyes again.

“Can you come by tomorrow,” he said. Then... “No. The funeral’s tomorrow. Xenophilius’ funeral, and then you have to prep for your exam.”

"This is a little more important than an exam, don't you think?"

"Can you fix me tomorrow? Or even in the next week?"

"No," he admitted.

"Then that one more week won't hurt. Next Sunday. If you're hit with something brilliant between now and then, we'll figure something out then.” He closed his eyes. “Is Dash alright? Wherever he is?”

“He misses you,” Ren said.  “He said to tell you that. And to just... keep going.”

“He’s a good kid,” Charlie said, and then, idly and somewhat vaguely, through his fatigue...“It’s weird, you know?”

“What is?”

“Some people you meet... It’s like you know them. From another life, maybe.  Another time.  He’s only eleven, and even now we’ve only met in person two or three times... But it was like that with him, straight away.  Like we’d always known each other.”

“I’m pretty sure he feels the same way,” Ren said, and impulsively - “He said his dragon likes you.”

“Huh?”

“His Horntail. The one in his wand. He said it has a really bizarre sense of humour, and doesn’t listen to him very often, but when he told it to behave itself the day he met you, that it listened right away. “

“I like Horntails,” Charlie said. “They’re big and scary. I like the big scary ones best.”

“They are that,” Ren agreed. “I’ll tell you the story of the one I met in person, one day. Mother on top of her eggs, and I was _that_ close.” He held up his fingers, an inch apart. “I thought I was done in for sure.”

Charlie’s eyes actually sparked with tired amusement.

“You got a Mastery in giving the piss too?” he asked. “There’s no way, mate.”

“Our taxi’s here,” Bill got to his feet.  Ren too stood.

"You don't have to do this alone," he said to him. "I'm not going to tell anybody, and you're going to need help. And you’re a curse-breaker. How many curse-breakers work alone?”

Bill just took the handles of the chair.

“259 Bolingbroke Court,” he said. “Flat B. There’s an apparition point down the block, behind the floristry.”

“I’ll find it,” Ren said.

“Sure.” He pushed Charlie over, and helped him maneuver into the interior. Ren watched as he folded the chair and tucked it into the boot before sliding in beside his brother.  The door closed firmly. In the darkness, it trundled away. Ren sat on the curb, mind whirling...

And then full realization collapsed in on him, smothering him, and he lost breath. For a minute, a full minute, he truly thought he was going to suffocate with it. He breathed deeply, in and out, a black, corpse-like vine of nauseating understanding twisting and flowering, and stood abruptly and apparated out. He cracked in,  right outside Ravenclaw Tower. A third year nearly wet herself.

“Master Cartwright?”

“Can you fetch me Professor Shelley,” he said. “Now, please? It’s urgent.”

“How did you do that?” a fifth year demanded. “You can apparate anywhere now? Never mind the wards, that’s just rude!”

“Shut up,” a sixth year hissed.

“Master Cartwright?” Lily said, startled, as she emerged.  “What is it?”

“I need your help,” he said.  Lily Evans Potter didn’t blink an eye.

“Of course,” she said. Ren took her arm and cracked out, straight down to his quarters down in the Sett.

 “I just came from seeing Charlie,” he said.  "I figured it out. It’s not a disease at all. Wizarding cancer. It’s just... It’s just an analogy. It’s a curse. It’s the Cruciatus, set to slow motion, but the target isn’t your body, it’s your core. Set to send your core insane.  It’s got all the symptoms, everything you feel in ten seconds, designed to take years. To maximize the fucking _potential_.”

“Christ,” Lily Potter breathed. “Oh my God.”

“I have to save him, Mum.” He was in tears. “I can’t... I can’t let him go through that again, I can’t, I can’t, I _can’t_.”

“Shh. Shh, Harry.” She dropped her glamours and came over to take his face in her hands. “You won’t. You won’t.”

“I don’t even know where to start!”

“Harry. Harry. Listen to me.”

“It’s Ren.”

“Fuck that.  I’m your mother and I’ll call you whatever I bloody well please." She knelt before him. “Do you love him,” she said.

“What kind of question is that?”

“A rather important one, I think,” his mother said.  “All things considered.  It could make the difference, if you let it. I _know_. We both know. We're _proof_."

“I don’t...”

He stopped abruptly, staring at her in bemusement. She said nothing. He closed his eyes tight, and remembered.

 

**_Why me?_ **

**_Because you’ve been there, Charlie said through his haze of pain. You’ve been there, Harry. And where you’ve been... If you agree to send me there too... I’ll know I can safely go._ **

**_Charlie..._ **

**_Please, mate. Don’t make me beg. I trust you. Trust me. This isn’t death you’re giving me, I promise. I_ ** **promise. _It’s not death. It’s life._ And it has to be you _._**

**_It’s always been me, he said. But this... This is too much, it’s..._ **

**_You’re right, Charlie whispered. It’s always been you. Always. And for better or worse... It always will be. Now kiss me goodbye, like a good mate, and let me go. It’ll only be for a little while, I promise._ **

**_He wept blindly, and bent, and kissed his forehead. Charlie grabbed his hand._ **

**_“Harry,” he said. “D’you think... D’you think there are dragons, where I’m going?”_ **

**_“Yes,” Harry said. “Yes.” Because if there was one thing he knew, though he’d never quite made it all the way... Wherever Charlie Weasley was... There would be dragons._ **

**_And Charlie had relaxed._ **

**_“Good,” he said. “Good. That’s good to know.” He’d lain back on the pillows. “Go on. I’m ready.”_ **

**_“I’m not,” Harry said, but he’d pulled out his wand. Charlie had shaken his head._ **

**_“Use mine,” he said.”Its time is over, when I am. It’ll never match another. Too old. I was its last. Use it, and break it, and the dragons will come to burn us both.”_ **

**_“What, you’re that sure they’ll show up to send you off?’_ **

**_“Couple of them owe me a favour. They’ll show.”_ **

**_And Harry had put his wand away, and picked up ... the_ ** **thing.**

**_“Charlie,” he’d said helplessly. Charlie had taken his hand._ **

**_“I love you, Harry James Potter,” he’d said steadily. “Tell me you love me?”_ **

**_“Always,” Harry had said, and had pointed the wand. “This won’t hurt, okay? I can promise you that much, at least.”_ **

**_“I trust you,” Charlie had said, his smile more lopsided than ever in his pain. Harry braced his wand hand with the other. It did no good. In the end, he had to sit beside the man on the bed and literally hold the tip of the wand to his heart to brace it._ **

**_“Avada Kedavra,” he’d said, voice wobbling through his tears. Behind his black lids, he’d heard Charlie  sigh and laugh._ **

**_“Come on, mate,” he said. “You can do better than that. You gotta_ ** **mean _it.”_**

**_“I’ll never mean it,” Harry had said starkly. “I’ll never be able to mean it. Not with you.”_ **

**_And he’d lowered his arm._ **

**_“Then kill the pain,” Charlie said, after another moment, into the silence. “You can do that much, can’t you?”_ **

**_He’d wiped his eyes with his sleeve._ **

**_“Yeah,” he’d whispered. “Yeah. That much... I can do.”_ **

**_And he’d stood, and turned, and met the eyes of the man that he’d always thought of as his brother for the last time._ **

**_“Meet me at the train,” he’d said. “At King’s Cross. When it’s my time?”_ **

**_“I’ll be there,” Charlie had promised. “If I can be.”_ **

**_“Not good enough, Weasley. Promise me.”_ **

**_“Wherever you are,” Charlie had said after a moment. “I will be there. That... That, I promise.”_ **

**_He’d nodded choppily, and let the hate fill him. Hate for the pain, for the cancer, for fate or whimsy or... Whatever._ **

**_In the end, he couldn’t do it. At the last moment, the very last moment, as the last syllable had left his lips... The hate had all faded away. A fine line between hate and love... and in the end... He couldn’t walk it. He’d fallen: fallen on the side of the light as he always did, as he was fated to do every single time, but in the end... When he opened his eyes..._ **

**_It had made no difference, after all._ **

**_He’d gone home that night and gotten drunk, and lost himself in his utter agony in Gin’s arms. In her body, over and over, and she’d just held him and kissed him and taken him even as he’d taken her, over and over as she drowned in her own pain. In the morning, as he’d knelt over the toilet, vomiting relentlessly, not from the alcohol but at the realization of what he’d done, she’d knelt beside him as he’d retched and wept, and put her arms around him._ **

**_“Oh Harry,” she’d said. “Harry. Don’t.”_ **

**_“If you tell me,” he’d said through his tears. “That it was the right thing to do... That one day it’ll be alright...”_ **

**_“No,” she’d whispered. “No, it’ll never be alright. Never again. Not in this lifetime.”_ **

**_In that moment, he’d loved her more than he had ever thought it possible to love another human being. He’d turned, covered in sick as he was, and taken her in his arms, and she’d taken him in hers, and they’d held each other as they had and would through all the long years._ **

**_“I love you so much,” he said. “You really do understand... Everything, don’t you?”_ **

**_“Lucky for you,” she’d said, and brushed his damp, sweaty hair back. “I really, really do.  Lucky for you.”_ **

 

“Harry?”

He opened his eyes – and found himself sitting, not on the sofa in his quarters, but in the middle of the floor of the ward room, arms wrapped around his knees, and face buried in his arms. He lifted his face. It was ghastly pale. His wands lay on the floor before him, neatly crossed.

“Hey Neville,” he said.

“Your mum called me,” Neville said, sitting beside him. He was wearing his Headmaster’s robes, and his hand as it took Ren's was warm and smelled of fresh young earth and spiced ale and lavender. “She said you two were talking in your quarters, and you apparated out. Hogwarts told me you were here.”

“Oh.” Ren pondered that. “I don’t remember. Apparating out, I mean. Is she mad?’

“No. Anything you want to talk about?”

“No. Not right now. Can I ask you a question?’

“Sure. ‘Course.”

“Did you take the Oath again since you’ve been here? To this Hogwarts?’

Neville paused.

“Yeah,” he said. “In a way. Sort of. The night you killed the Elder Wand.”

“And were you in the castle when you did it? I mean... Outside the Room of Requirement?”

“Yeah.”

“But...” Ren remembered again.

 ** _Anything that the Room_** **identifies _as real through me… Can become_ actual _, if Hogwarts deems it necessary for its defense. It doesn’t care so much about me personally, but when you take a magically binding oath, your core changes._ You** **_change. When you accept the Headmaster`s Oath for what it truly is, and it accepts you, the magics of the school itself become a part of you, and you of them._**

 “You took it again.” Ren repeated. “To _this_ Hogwarts. So your core will have changed again, even if you look just the same.”

“Yes.”

Ren ran his hand through his hair.

“You can’t go back either now,” he said. It sounded a little lost. "Why would you do a thing like that?"

“We might not have been joined at the hip all those decades, Potter,"  Neville Longbottom said. “But we’re _family_.  You didn’t really think I was going to leave you alone here, do you?”

“But... It’s another hundred years! With no guarantees that we’ll ever get back after, to where we were supposed to go!”

“I told you, I don’t think it works like that. And I’m willing to take the chance anyway.”

“Why? Because of your parents again?”

“No. Because of you, you great berk. You’re saying if it were the other way around, you wouldn’t stay for me?’

“No. I mean... Yes. I would.”

“And what would you say if I asked you why?”

“That you were being a great berk,”  Ren admitted. “And to shut it already, and to go off and do whatever Headmastery things it is that you Headmasters do.”

“Paperwork,” Neil said. “Diplomacy. Mopping up snotty, blubbing first years, and the occasional snotty, blubbing neo- professor.” He heaved himself to his feet, and hauled him up.

“Have you told your Gran yet? And McGonagall?”

“No. I plan to tell Gran next week, on her birthday. As for Minerva...”

Ren eyed him.

 “You’re really serious about her,” he said.

“I don’t know that serious is the right word.  Curious, maybe. And I wouldn’t have been,” Neil said. “About our McGonagall. But this one... There are differences, and it’s not just because I’m seeing her with adult eyes.”

“Oh?”

“She’s different here,” he said. “Not so tame as she was at home. A lot of the stuff that she caved to Dumbledore on, back there... She just plain didn’t know about here. She never would have put up with you being at the Dursleys if she’d known what kind of people were waiting for you there. She did, you know, back home. She was there with him, the night that he left you. She warned him off, but she let him leave you. There’s no way that the Minerva here would have tolerated that; she would have hexed him on the spot for even suggesting it, grabbed you, and run for America. Oh, and all that stuff with Umbridge? Umbridge never would have made it through her first night here at Hogwarts, Ministry appointee or not. Min would have transfigured her into a cat toy in her sleep and wrapped her up for Mrs. Norris.”

“ _Min_?”

“Shut up, you young whippersnapper, or I’ll turn you over my knee.”

Ren laughed.

“What do you suppose made the difference?” he asked.

“Honestly? As far as I can tell...  It was Gran again.”

“Uh?”

“We talked a little, while you were holed up here this week. She told me a bit of her history, and I told her what I knew of her counterpart’s, and as it turns out, here... Here she went to Gran on advice on marrying her husband Elphinstone when he first proposed.  Gran told her not to be an idiot. Quoted that Burns poem at her, actually. So... She went for it. They had almost twenty five years together before he died, and were stupidly happy. And now... Here... She’s lived her life as someone who loved, not someone who lost.”

“I thought,” Ren mused. “That the histories of the dimension and ours were supposed to be identical. There _do_ seem to be an awful lot of changes here, on all levels. Do you think we hit the right door in the end?”

“Dunno. It’s possible we missed, I suppose; there were an awful lot of variables to work with. Does it matter? This is where we are now. It’s what we’ve got to work with. It’s _ours_.”

“You know she’ll totally push for you two to get married right away, once you tell her,” Ren said. “Your Gran, I mean. Considering that you have that history of siring children later on in life and all.”

“Cousin Gussie,” he corrected.  Ren looked at him sideways.

“You’ll get to meet them,” he said. “If you stay. If this all works out.”

“I won’t say it wasn’t a big part of my decision,” he admitted. “They won’t be my parents, but then again... I don’t think it’ll really matter when it comes right down to it. I thought it’d be enough to come here, to see the job done, and to go on... But the longer I’m here, that we’re here... “ He pushed his hands in his pockets. “It seems a shame to waste the opportunity, you know?”

“You’re not worried about Riddle again?’

He waved him off.

“He’s good,” he said. “You’re better. Worth ten of him, really.”

“And Dumbledore?”

The Headmaster stopped in his tracks, and resumed again.

“Dumbledore’s mine,” he said. “I honestly don’t care which one of us takes down Riddle, as long as he goes... But that fucking tosser who called himself my predecessor... He’s _mine.”_

“Can I ask what you plan to do with him?”

“No. You can’t. And you wouldn’t approve, anyway.”

“Oh yes, because I’m such the naturally squeamish sort,” Ren said dryly.

“You’re a Hufflepuff now. Goes with the territory.”

“Can I watch at least?”

“Don’t you have enough scars to be going on with? Which reminds me... You did drop by to see him, didn’t you? At the DMLE, after the peacock fiasco at the Malfoys?”

“Yeah. He offered me a lemon drop.”

“Did you up the wards?”

“Discreetly. There was only so much I could do with his beady twinkling eyes fixed on me. Pretty sure he was trying to pick up and memorize the unfamiliar wand movements, and unfortunately, a lot of the more advanced stuff just can’t be done without one.”

“Bleurgh. You think he recognized you?”

“No. He was dead curious though. Made a couple of comments about how he'd never been to America, but he'd read good things about the innovative wand work we manage over..." He stopped, suddenly repulsed. "Ew. Urgh. Oh my God.  Please tell me that he wasn't... Urghhhhhhhhhhh!"

"Congratulations, mate." Neil patted him on the back. "Hundred forty years, and the gaydar's finally kicked in."

"I knew he was bent. I'm not that oblivious. It's just... Urgghhhhh!" He actually gagged. "Obliviate me. Now. Please?"

Neil just laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: the Warding exams and the duel!


	6. Let Us Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever-so-slightly lemon scented toward the end. Nothing truly explicit, at all, but... 
> 
> :)

 

**Monday November 17, 1991**

**8.40 AM**

 “You,” the Headmaster of Hogwarts informed his peacefully bleary grandson in disgust as he strode into the Great Hall that Monday morning, “are a gigantic pain in my ass.” The huge wooden crate following him at breakneck pace dropped to the floor at the imperious wave of his wand, landing with a thud that shook the entire Head Table.

“Uh?” Ren looked up from his class notes, cheek bulging, and swallowed hastily. “Erhm. Whuh?”

“ _Three_ International Masteries?” Neil made no effort whatsoever to modulate his tone. “ _Three?_   One would be considered an accomplishment worthy of the label ‘lifetime achievement’. Two, your age considered, would be enough to set you up as a prodigy on the level of Nicholas Flamel. _Three_ , on the other hand... Do you know what three gets you?”

There was a pause.

“In trouble with you?” Ren ventured.

“And there’s that great big brain of yours again.” Neil reached into the crate and threw a double handful of letters down before him. " _These_ were waiting for me in my office this morning. No, let me correct myself; these were all over the floor and desk and every other available surface in my office this morning,  waiting to inform me – not to ask me, mind you, but to _inform_ me – that each and every sender intends to attend your blasted examinations. One thousand, four hundred and _nine_ of them at latest count, _not_ counting the registered students here, and do you know what _that_ means?”

Ren looked around. The students were all staring, fascinated. “Blimey,” he heard one of the Ravenclaws mutter. “It’s like watching a Howler go live!”

“Um. No, but... I don’t think we’re going to be able to fit that many spectators in the main Wards Room. Never mind this issues of security, and the portkeys that I’ve arranged for _definitely_ won’t transport that many.  Also, I’m fairly sure that the goblins won’t want an audience while I’m setting up that new remote vault system of theirs for the Rio branch, and...” He winced a bit at the proffered thunderous expression. “You don’t care about Rio, do you?”

“ _They_ do not care about Rio,” Neil said. “Or the Wards Room, or the portkeys. They just want to see you _duel_.” He fairly growled the word.  “Do you know what the Board of Governors said when I owled  to inform them of this entirely untenable situation, _Lawrence_?”

“That they don’t really care how many people are there or how untenable you find it all as long as they get front row seats?”

“BINGO!” He hauled out his wand and pointed it straight at the younger man. “EVANESCO!”

Students screamed. Teachers scattered, shouting and alarmed. Ren just buttered another slice of toast, chewing placidly as every letter before him vanished. The Headmaster strode around the table and hurled himself into his chair, reaching for the jam spoon and the marmalade and shoveling the contents straight into his mouth.

“I should have left you to the wolves in Alaska as a baby,” he informed the would-be Wards Master. “You would have managed perfectly well, and I wouldn’t be dealing with the appallingly annoying and inconvenient results of your compulsive and chronic adventures in over-achievement. How’s Jax?  I stopped in there just now but she was sleeping and Poppy was with another patient so I couldn’t ask her. Did the first sequences set well?”

“They did. She’s a real trouper, that one. I was down there at six, out by seven thirty, and the last fifteen minutes was spent fending off her army of flying chocolate frogs while trying to explain to her that coffee and residual anesthetic potions just aren’t a workable combination. And I love you too, Gramps.” Ren poured him orange juice. “Come on. Relax, would you? It’s not that big a deal, really. I’ll be back from Rio by dinner on Friday to help finalize the set up  – they’re just going to have to accommodate the time difference on my end when it comes to me working on-site; I’m certainly not going to accommodate _them_ , not when they’re getting the framework for a level 10 security system out of the deal – and in the meantime, I have all of today and tomorrow to get everything started. That’ll give me plenty of time to erect a temporary stadium on the Quidditch pitch in time for Saturday, and if you’re worried about feeding everyone...”

“They should be worried about me eating _them!_ ”

“We’ll just put up a notice in the papers saying that the school itself is out of bounds to everyone but students and teachers because the duel isn’t a Hogwarts sponsored event. You’re just renting out the grounds for a private citizen’s private endeavor, and if they want food, they can go to Hogsmeade or bring a packed lunch.”

The Headmaster banged down the empty marmalade jar and hauled the platter of breakfast meats over as he considered that.

“We could do that,” he conceded. “Alright. Okay. Though for the record, there’d better not be one speck of garbage on the grounds after all this is done, or there _will_ be a diplomatic incident. One involving my _teeth_.”

“No worries,” Ren reassured him. “I’ll take care of everything, including the bodies if you slip up.”

“You won’t have to take care of the bodies. Because I will _eat_ them!”

“Headmaster, really,” McGonagall said with not-particularly-sincere disapproval. “You’re frightening the first years.” The first years all shouted in sturdy negation. Neil popped his ears at them. “Would you like help with that temporary stadium, Master Cartwright? Filius and I both have our sixth year and NEWT classes today, and we’d be more than happy to loan them to you for whatever help they can provide.”

“That’d be great.” He popped a rasher of bacon and beamed at her. “You guys are all so awesome. Aren’t they awesome, Gramps? “

“Chew with your mouth shut,” was all Gramps said, and gulped his juice. “This isn’t over till it’s over, and I still have the wolves on call.” Ren just leaned over and offered him a kiss on the cheek.

“You’re awesome too,” he said, and pushing a jar over... “Honey?"

“Shuddit.” Grumbling, the Headmaster returned the kiss, accepted the jar and poured the contents over his plateful of bangers.

“Gorry,” Fred murmured to George. “Can you ever tell he’s a Longbottom, eh? The Headmaster, I mean, not Master Cartwright.  He sounds just like Nev’s gran when she’s on a tear.”

“They probably practice on each other,” Lee Jordan said. “Damn. Look at that pile of bangers he’s got there. He’s just like Neville, all grown up!”

“One thousand four hundred and _nine_?” Ron was exclaiming. “How many more do you think they’ll be by the end of the week then, Perce?”

“A lot,” Percy said succinctly, gathering up his books. “Now if you’ll all excuse me, I am going to go find a corner to hide in till this fiasco is all over.”

“Fiasco?” George  was taken aback. “That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think? I mean, we know you don’t like people, and more to the point that people don’t like _you_ , but...”

“It’s not about me.” Percy dropped a letter in front of him and stalked off. Ron grabbed it and scanned it.

“It’s from Mum,” he said. “She’s been called in as a second, by the goblins, and...” His face fell. “Bollocks. _That’s_ not good.”

“What what?”

“Bill didn’t recommend her after all,” Ron said. “They contacted her independently.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Hermione asked tentatively, looking from brother to brother as the twins’ mouths dropped in dismayed tandem.

“Yeah. It means that he won’t feel inclined or obliged to be benevolent,” Fred said. “And that _she_ won’t feel inclined or obliged to be hopeful. And they’ll have wands. Publicly sanctioned wands, and potshots won’t even begin to cover it. ”

“Oh dear,” she said, then... “Erhm. Not to be nosy... Only would it be really impolite to ask?”

“Not impolite, no,” Ron said. “Only that’s the thing. None of us really know. There’s something, obviously, and has been for as long as any of us can remember – before Perce can remember, even -  and it’s got to do with Charlie, we’ve figured  that much, but that’s all. We don’t dare ask either, or the wands would be aimed at us.” He gathered up his own books. “Come on. We’re going to be late for class.’

They too, headed out. Fred and George looked at each other grimly as Hermione glanced uncertainly back at them over her shoulder.

“This can’t-“ Fred said.

“End well,” George agreed.

“Maybe you should warn him,” Angelina suggested. “Master Cartwright I mean?”

“They can’t warn him, Ange,” Katie Bell said. “He’s not allowed to know who’s on the lists – officially, anyway – before the day. “

“But Fred said that Bill said he was in! Over dinner with Charlie on Saturday! Those two are total loose cannons around each other, and stadiums have walls! Enclosing walls, and one thousand four hundred nine people not-counting-students is a lot of bludger bait, yeah?"

“Bill only said –“

“That he was called in,”  George said. “And not everybody-“

“Who is called in-“

“Is called _on_ ,” he finished. “It was all-“

“Strictly hypothetical - ”

“Till today.  The rules say-“

“That there has to be –“

“Five days’ official notice, from both sides.”

“Well, bugger,” Angelina said, stymied, and then... “On the bright side, if they off each other, there’ll be that much more of the inheritance available for your joke shop!”

“You always-“

“Know just what to say-“

“To make us-“

“Feel better, Angel.”

They offered her pats on either shoulder and grabbed an apple apiece as the bell rang. Angelina batted them off and gathered up her books as her favoured cronies gathered around.

“One thousand four hundred and nine.” India Lannis: Ravenclaw, shook her head. “And it’s just Monday breakfast.  This is going to get right out of control, isn’t it?”

“Naw,” Lee Jordan said. Then... “Well, maybe? This isn’t just about the Invitationals anymore; that’s pretty obvious.”

“Uh?”

“Triple International Mastery in DADA, Dueling and Warding? From someone nobody’s ever heard of before? He’s gotta have been trained up and accredited by somebody, and okay, he seems like a nice enough bloke, but with the ICW right here, and him making his public debut on the tenth anniversary of You-Know-Who, you _know_ they’re wondering what the odds there are on him being Dark. Those three subjects are practically the Dark _Trifecta_ if you look on wards as curse-breaking in reverse, and you have to know all the curses before you can break them and set up defenses against them, don’t you?”

“But he’s a _Hufflepuff_!”

“He was _assigned_ to Hufflepuff,” Alicia Spinnet corrected. “By their Founder. And they have orders through the Sorting Hat, from that Founder, to cuddle him senseless. What kind of wizard needs all that court-ordered love if he hasn’t got serious, potentially dangerous instincts to tame? And he’s an independent besides; I heard Fudge is going nutters trying to sign him up because he’s so worried about having someone like that wandering about who’s not under Ministry control!”

“But... He’s so nice!” Katie Bell protested, craning her neck to examine the object of their musings. “So ordinary! And nobody with an arse like that can be _all_ bad! And besides,” she added. “Fudge probably isn’t worried so much about him being a Dark Wizard as he is him being popular enough to oust him in the next election if he decides he wants that. He could definitely run, anyway; he’s got British citizenship through the Longbottoms, and after taking out those twelve blokes at the Lovegoods and being such a major part of what happened in Edinburgh before that, his popularity’s sky high.”

“Yeah,” Kenneth Towler agreed. “And he’s got the family connection with the Slytherins through the Headmaster too, never mind that he located, and opened, the Chamber of Secrets. If he did do all this with an eye on going into politics, he’s got it all covered, doesn’t he?”

The second bell rang. They all straggled towards the main doors.

“He’s not Dark,” Katie Bell said firmly again. “Everything else aside... Professor Lupin and Professor Black like him. They trust him. They trust him with Harry, and Madam Longbottom trusts him with Neville, and after what happened with Peter Pettigrew and Harry’s parents, and with Madam Longbottom’s son and daughter-in-law... They’re not going to trust just anybody with those two, are they?”

“That may or may not be,” Angela said. “But we’re not the ones who need to be convinced, Katie. Or the ones who count. And he’s made a lot of enemies already. Those twelve blokes... They have a lot of friends, you know? Friends in bad, bad places. And he didn’t grow up here. He can’t _know_.”

“He’ll know,” Lee assured her. “By now, he definitely will. He didn’t get those kind of awards he’s earned without doing his research, Ange.” He too, craned his neck. Ren Cartwright was loading up his thermal coffee mug, and making his way towards the door amid a bevy of miniature yellow and black escorts. “Come on.  We don’t want to be late; it’s not a good week, I reckon, to set any of the professors on edge, not when they’ll be thinking on all of this just as much as we are...”

 

**Ren’s Quarters**

**Tuesday November 18, 1991**

**8.30 pm**

Lee Jordan’s assessment of the oncoming general emotional climate was bang on. By the time Tuesday evening rolled around, the castle was jittering at the seams, and between all the rumours, speculation, anticipation and frantic preparations for the weekend’s influx of three thousand effective tourists, nearly every single resident was a complete nervous wreck.  The object of their concern, on the other hand, seemed singularly _un_ concerned. With less than twelve hours to go before his hour of reckoning, Master Lawrence Domitian Cartwright was indulging in nothing more emotionally strenuous than sitting in his favourite armchair, socked feet propped on his coffee table as he ate fried dumplings straight from the take-away carton and wielded his wands in the place of chopsticks as deftly as he’d ever managed them in battle.

“Will you stop that?” Sirius said irritably. _He_ was sitting in a tangle of loosed dark hair, bony arms and legs and hunched shoulders by the hearth, disdaining the comfort of chair, sofa or lover’s reassuring arm as he huddled close to the completely unnecessary warmth of the fire. 

“Stop what?” Ren inquired. He selected a tidbit, dipped it a hovering container of plum sauce, and ate it tidily.

“ _Eating_! With your _wands_! It’s uncivilized!  _Inherently_ uncivilized! Oh my God. I sound just like my mum. Kill me now.”

“My wands are inherently uncivilized in and of themselves, Sirius. Hungarian Horntails do not inhabit the apex of polite society. They do keep my food warm, though. It’s the radiant heat from the heartstrings, yeah?”

“Use the chopsticks, Master Cartwright,” Minerva McGonagall advised him. She was seated on his second sofa, legs curled under her as she stabbed rather viciously at her needlework. Neil sat beside her, long legs stretched out before him and long arm stretched across the back behind her, not... quite... touching her. On a teenager, or the vast majority of other men, for that matter, the gesture would have looked rather pathetic and obvious. On Neville Longbottom it looked gallantly and properly restrained: perfectly gentlemanly, in fact, if one didn’t take into account the ears and feet, anyway... One of these days, Ren thought as he Summoned a pork bun, and probably not too far a day in the future either, the levels of pure provocation considered, one of the students was going to dare to sneak up behind their Headmaster and attach an official Paddington Station luggage label (or perhaps one from Darkest Peru) to his robes reading ‘PLEASE LOOK AFTER THIS BEAR. THANK YOU.’ “And a plate. Please? For all of our sakes, never mind your parents’ sanity? Oh, and may I ask on behalf of Augusta what you plan to wear tomorrow?”

“Clothes. And... Really? Of all of the questions you could have asked, you’re worried on what I’m going to be wearing?”

“ _I_ am not,” she said primly. “I _am_ worried, however, that your rather cavalier attitude toward the events of the next few days is going to come back to bite you in the posterior. Have you spent any time revising at all?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The last hundred years. Will you relax, the lot of you? There is absolutely nothing that they can throw at me that I can’t manage blindfolded and with both hands tied behind my back. As long as you put one of my wands in each hand, anyway, and a biro between my teeth. Inky side out, please.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“I was going for reassuring.” He popped in the last of the dumplings and sent the carton flying into the fire. “Please. All of you. Try to remember that everything on the testing agenda is, from my point of view, at least five generations out of date?”

“Will you _stop_?” Sirius now looked stressed to the point of tears. “This is a very big _deal,_ pup! People are coming in from all over the _world_ for this! The Minister of _Magic_ ’s coming in for this; half the members of the ICW are coming in for this; the international press is coming in for this...  Never mind that there are going to be three thousand people here for the duel, and _you_ might not be worried about any of the people assigned as primaries there, but _I’ve_ seen the list! It’s way too elite to have been put together at the last minute, no matter how loud the complaining’s been about you only giving the Masteries Board half a week to prepare, and that’s barely two weeks after you informed them that you exist at all, isn’t it? _That_ means... I don’t know what it means; I’m too confused to think clearly right now, but it’s not good! And don’t brush me off again, okay? Just... don’t. I _know_ how much this means to you, I _know,_ okay, and do you know what it does to me that I can’t _do_ anything for you?”

He pulled his legs up to his chest and buried his face in his hands. Remus, beside him, transformed to McWolf and nuzzled at him. Sirius opened his arms just long enough for the wolfhound to clamber into his lap, wrapping him up and burying his face in the springy fur.  Ren Vanished the plum sauce, spelled his wands clean and, sliding them back in his sleeves, came to sit beside them both.

“All it means, Padfoot, is that I got the last wildcard slot in the Invitationals in Dublin,” he said.  “And that I _am_ a complete unknown as you said, and that this entire party, in retrospect, has been set up to see, not what I can do with wards, but what I can do with my wands. It probably wasn’t the Boards’ idea to put me off at all, if you think about it - they were probably under a lot of pressure as soon as I registered for both events to speed the exams up by any means so that the bookies can come in with the crowds to assess my style.”

“Then why would you accept? Money aside... If you’d put things off till April, no one would have gotten so much as a peek at what you can do before the competition!”

“You’d think, but this way, they only think they’re the ones setting the odds. Sure, they get the sneak preview, and word’ll get out... But it also allows me to give them what I want them to see, doesn’t it? Overconfidence is a lot easier to deal with on the dueling floor than cautious worry, and you can bet they’ll be tossing in a couple of signature moves of some of the major candidates besides, just to see how I deal with them.  An International Mastery is a huge thing, but when it comes down to it, it’s _my_ huge thing.  The crowds who care whether I succeed or not are very select; warding just isn’t that exciting to the average person, as long as the results work effectively anyway.  Dueling, though... Especially on this level, the highest level there is... It’s a different story, never mind the sheer amounts of money involved in a once-every-ten-year event.”

“And that’s another thing! It _is_ a different story! How are you managing to be accredited as an International level duelist, _and_ an International level DADA expert that no one’s ever actually _heard_ of? That’s not the kind of thing that goes unnoticed, you know?”

“Depends on how you got them,” Ren said. “The credentials, that is. You see before you a member-in-good–standing of Her Majesty’s American branch of the Order of the Vulture.  Got my start in through Cousin Gussie when it became obvious at my ridiculously young age how talented I was, and she arranged for her Majesty to get in touch with the higher-ups in various countries to have me trained. My International Masteries only recently went on public record – not surprising considering the specialties – and I’m aiming for my third the traditional way.”

“Oh.” That actually seemed to settle Sirius a bit. Remus, as McWolf, licked his face reassuringly. “That makes sense.” He paused. “You know, I’m not actually legally related to you like this? I can put money on you!”

“What, the famously near-bottomless Black fortunes plus half shares in the hundred seventy million galleon endowment from the ICW for the distribution of the cure for lycanthropy aren’t enough for you?”  

“That’s Remus’ half share,” Sirius said. “Not mine.  Even when we’re married, it’ll still be his. Fleamont left the recipe to him, after all; he...” He stopped. “Right. I forgot. He didn’t, did he? That was you again, and Neil.”

“Technically it wasn’t either of us,” Neil said. “And since we have no way of knowing how the future will fall out here, we’ll just call it a wedding gift. In private, anyway.”

“Part of it was Fleamont’s,” Remus said, morphing back. “The enviro-cleaning fluid part. That much of his work deserves to be credited.”

“I’ll let you buy me an owl,” Ren offered. “Since Phineas is going off to Castelobruxo with Marshmallow.“  He crossed his legs comfortably, just as an extremely portly yellow-striped kneazle  strolled in from the bedroom and gazed at him with hugely tawny eyes. Her enormous ears, magnificent ruff and tufted tail quivered in regal anticipation. He Summoned another pork bun and broke off a bit, offering it up. “Hullo, then. Back again, are you?”  The kneazle said nothing, just gobbled the offering, sniffed at his fingers, and, sneering at Sirius, sauntered over to where McGonagall was sitting, scrambling heavily up to the arm of the sofa. Neil watched, amused, as the two battled it out over her embroidery thread.

“That’s nice,” Sirius said. “When did you get _that,_ and what is it with you and your fat pets? First Phineas, then this blob?”

 “She’s not mine,” Ren ignored that last. “Or rather, I’m not hers. She belongs to one of the seventh years: she just likes my bed better than his. Would it make you feel better to quiz me?’

“No. What the hell do I know about wards? They keep things in and keep things out, that’s what I know about them.”

A soft knock sounded on the door of his quarters... “Come on in,” Ren called. It opened promptly; several young heads peered in anxiously.

“Master Cartwright?” Emily Carpenter said. “We just wanted to make sure you’re alrigh...” She blinked around. “What are _you_ all doing here? You're not supposed to be here! You're not _allowed_!”

“ _Emily_!”  Ernie McMillan was appalled. “They’re _professors_!”

“But they’re not _Hufflepuffs_! There hasn’t been a not-Hufflepuff in the Sett for a thousand years!”

“And there hasn’t been yet,” Remus reassured her. “We’re adults, and don’t count as people, really, Miss Carpenter, so it’s quite alright.”

Emily did not look particularly appeased. Sally-Ann Perks poked her.

“We were going to offer to go to the kitchens to get you stress-snacks,” she said to Ren, surveying the wealth of take-out cartons on the coffee table. “But we see that you have that much under control, at least.”

“I’m not actually stressed,” he said. “But thank you, Miss Perks. You’re very thoughtful. Fortune cookie?’ He held out the bag. Miss Perks, as was her wont, perked.

“Ooh!” She selected one, cracking it and reading aloud. “’The best way to predict the future is to create it.’”

“In bed,” Sirius muttered, and sniggered. Remus prodded him hard, transforming back neatly to human form as he did so.

“Excellent advice,” he said, and Summoned a cookie of his own. “'Learn from your mistakes',” he read. “'And try not to make them again.' Well, that isn’t applicable, is it? Everyone knows I don’t make mistakes.  Anywhere.”

“Edinburgh,” Sirius coughed. "Back up?"

“You must learn to care for yourself,” the Headmaster read. “'Before you can care for others.' I think that one’s yours, Ren.”

“I’ve got all of Hufflepuff looking out for me,” he pointed out, and as the snigger turned to an outright snort.... “Shut it, Black.”

“'Avoid negative people to stay positive',” Sirius intoned, and popped his cookie into his mouth, crunching at him.

“Here you go, Miss Carpenter,” Minerva said, passing off the bag. “Just take the lot. _This_ lot doesn’t need the encouragement, I assure you.”

“Is there anything we can do for you, sir?” Ernie asked Ren. “Perhaps help you pick out a nice robe for the very, _very_ public events tomorr... OW!”

“Rude!” Emily said disapprovingly. “Also, not subtle! At _all_! What are you, a Gryffindor?” She dragged him out, yelping, by the ear, before poking her head back in. “We’ll tell Mike you have Cleopatra again, Master Cartwright, so he won’t worry.”

“ _Cleopatra_?”

Cleopatra hissed. Sirius struggled to his feet and returned to his position in the love seat and the crook of Remus’ arm. Remus kissed his forehead as he pulled him in.

“Nothing we can do, lover,” he said. “Lecturing them to do their homework is one thing, but eventually, they do have to learn from hard experience.”

“I. Will. Be. _Fine_ ,” Ren said patiently, returning to his armchair. “Now. Are we all over our little panic attacks on the proposed specifics for my demonstration set tomorrow?’

“We are,” Neville said. “I’m warning you now, though, if you screw up – anything up... If one fleck of stone is out of place by sundown tomorrow... Hogwarts will _not_ be happy with you. The only reason she’s allowing this at all is because I’m personally vouching for your ultimate good intent and skill with my Oath as collateral.”

“No worries,” Ren reassured him. “You didn’t think I was spending all that time holed up fixing loos and windows, did you? All the prep work’s done, and everything’s ready to roll.”

“But that was when you thought you had two months to get ready!” Sirius wailed, verging sharply left toward the panic exit again. “What if you‘ve missed something, what if...”

Neville watched as Harry rose to his feet, coming over to kneel before the man and take his shaking hands.

“Padfoot,” he said.  “Do you trust me?”

“Yeah, of course, but things can go _wrong_!”

“They can. Yeah, they can. But in this case... They won’t.  My word as a Marauder.”

“You still haven’t actually been sworn in yet.”

“So? Swear me in. I promise you, with only the five us in the know, it’s going to rate as the biggest prank in Hogwarts history. “

“You don’t even have a Marauder _name_!”

 “I kind of like The Great UnNamed in and of itself. Says it all, really.“ Across the room, a drawer flew open and the Map flew into Remus’ hand. He unfolded it neatly.

“Let’s just take care of that now, then.” he said, and tapped it. “Protocols six and eight: excision and incorporation. Authorization: Moony, secondary, Padfoot. Password:  Mischief and Moreso.”

The Map glowed. Ren rose and came to sit on the arm of the chair as Neville and McGonagall came around to look. McGonagall stared, thunderstruck at the vision unfurling before her.

“What,” she said. “Mr. Lupin... Is _this_?”

 **OOP,** the Map printed. **HELLO PROFESSOR McGONAGALL. DON’T YOU LOOK PARTICULARLY LOVELY TODAY!**

“One moment please, Minerva. First things first – the excision. Ready, Siri?’

“Do it,” Sirius said. His face was fierce. “ _Do_ it.”

“Protocol Six: subject - Wormtail,” Remus directed, tapping the page.  “On every level.  Authorization code: _Yimakh shemo._ ” Ren jumped as, without warning, the Marauder’s Map turned pitch black. Slowly, slowly, it returned to normal.

“Excellent. Protocol eight: incorporation. The Great UnNamed: firstborn and acknowledged Heir of the House of Moon and Shadow: established  December fifteenth, 1975.”

Sirius leaned against him.

“Firstborn and acknowledged,” he said. “Confirmed: Padfoot.”

“Firstborn and acknowledged,” he said. “Confirmed: Moony.”

The Map shimmered.

**BLOOD CORROBORATION REQUIRED**

“Just a drop,” Sirius reassured him. Ren nicked his thumb over the parchment. It absorbed immediately.

“What happens now?’ he asked.

“We don’t know. We wrote in a blank contingency.”

 **FIRSTBORN AND ACKNOWLEDGED,** the Map inscribed.  **MR. PRONGS WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO WELCOME THE GREAT UNNAMED TO THE FAMILY, AND TO CONGRATULATE MR. MOONY AND MR. PADFOOT ON PULLING OFF THE PRANK TO END ALL PRANKS. THEIR ABILITY TO DEFY BOTH MAGIC AND BIOLOGY TOWARD THE END OF PROVIDING THE PACK WITH THIS REMARKABLE ADDITION IS AS ASTOUNDINGLY BRILLIANT, FANTASTIC, AND JUST PLAIN WICKED AS BOTH OF THEM EVER WERE, BOTH INDIVIDUALLY AND TOGETHER.**

**YOU ARE, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, HIS HEROES.**

 “Oh, Moony, look!” Sirius said, enchanted. The Map had gone blank, and filled in again, not with lines and rooms and wandering feet and names, but with a beautiful scene of a nursery filled with flowers and cuddly toys and balloons of every variety.  The light of a full moon flowed through the window, and on the hearth, a wolf, a big black dog, and a great stag were all snoozing, curled around the base of a tiny bassinet.  Soft music emanated from the page, obviously charmed. From the bassinet emanated, not little scribed ‘zzz’ notations in bubbles, but tiny, elegant question marks.

“What...”

“He’s the Great UnNamed,” Sirius said. “His symbol is the interrogative.”

“Mischief Managed,” Remus said.  The parchment blanked.

“Can I have a go?” Ren asked.  Remus smiled at him and passed it off.

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!”

**MR. PRONGS WOULD LIKE TO CONGRATULATE THE GREAT UNNAMED ON HIS ASTONISHING PRECOCITY. THAT WAS VERY WELL ENUNCIATED FOR A NEWBORN.**

**MR. MOONY WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT THE GREAT UNNAMED OBVIOUSLY INHERITED NOT ONLY HIS BEAUTIFUL HAIR, BUT HIS BEAUTIFUL MIND.**

**MR. PADFOOT IMPLORES THE GREAT UNNAMED NOT TO DISPLAY THIS KIND OF PRECOCITY IN FRONT OF HIS MOTHER. SHE’LL TAKE IT AS A SIGN THAT HE’S MEANT TO RULE THE WIZARDING WORLD AND WILL INSIST ON VISITING EVERY SUNDAY TO MAKE SURE HE GETS THE APPROPRIATE DOSES OF VITUPERATIVE BILE AND ASSOCIATIVE INSANITY.**

“Autoset and update current location,” Ren directed. “Hufflepuff’s Sett.  Ren Cartwright’s private quarters.”

The Map paused.

 **GODRIC’S MOULDY _SHORTS_ ,** it wrote, aghast. **YOU’RE A _HUFFLEPUFF_? HOW IN THE NAME OF HELGA’S OVER-THE-SHOULDER-BOULDER-HOLDER DID _THAT_ HAPPEN?**

 “We’re not quite sure I am a Hufflepuff,” Ren said. “The Sorting Hat was a little vague. It just said that it, and Helga through it, was assigning me to the care of the Hufflepuffs while I work on fulfilling my self-assigned personal life goals.”

**MR. PRONGS WOULD LIKE CONFIRMATION. IS THE GREAT UNNAMED ACTUALLY SAYING THAT ALL OF HUFFLEPUFF HOUSE ARE HIS PERSONAL, FOUNDER-ASSIGNED MINIONS?**

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it, if you’re anyone but a Hufflepuff, anyway. They prefer to identify themselves as on a mission from their version of God.”

**OF COURSE THEY DO. MR. PRONGS IS CURIOUS. HOW FAR DOES THIS MISSION CARRY THEM, ON THE PERSONAL LEVEL? IN TERMS OF ENSURING YOUR PERSONAL COMFORT, HE MEANS?**

“Not that far. I’m a benevolent overlord,” Ren said. “Never mind a consulting professor of sorts. I’ve got them calling me Master full-time, though, along with everyone else in the castle. Will that do to start?’

 **MR. PADFOOT WOULD LIKE TO CONGRATULATE MR. MOONY,** the Map wrote. **THE BRILLIANT HAIR AND BRILLIANT MIND WERE OBVIOUSLY ONLY THE START OF THE RESEMBLANCE THERE. CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK, HURRAH!**

“And that will be quite enough of _that_ ,” Sirius seized and folded the Map hurriedly. Neil guffawed.

“Wait a second,” Ren said. “Shouldn’t Mr. Prongs have recognized me as his son too?  I mean... Down in the wards room, you said that it had identified me as his child, and that’s why it was reluctant to put a name to me till I self-identified properly, right?’

“We didn’t identify the Great UnNamed by his given name,” Remus explained. “Only by your Marauder name. In the Map’s mind, such as it is, Moony is not the same person as Remus Lupin, nor is Padfoot the same person as Sirius Black. They’re completely separate entities. Theoretical entities, as opposed to actual ones.”

Ren frowned. “But ... “

“It’s not intelligent, pup. It just works off the enchantments we put into it, and we were careful that way, yeah? We didn’t want to risk being found out if anyone nicked it.”

“So how does it recognize – did it recognize - that I belong to the three of you as Ren and/or Harry in the first place?”

“It has to do with the way that a couple of the charms we put on it interact with each other,” Remus said. “We played around with them a fair bit to get the results we wanted.  Honestly, cub...  On that finer level, we can’t tell you exactly how it works, just that it does.”

“Huh,” Ren said, and catching Minerva’s expression... “You alright there, Professor?”

“Do not ask me that, Master Cartwright,” Minerva McGonagall said. “I am, just at this moment, caught between abject pride, raging disapproval and acute embarrassment that I am such an obviously and profoundly oblivious individual.”

“To be fair,” Sirius said to her, “it was four against one. And we all missed Peter, and he was a bloody _rat_ , for Merlin’s sake!  We just thought it was reflective of his thing for cheese.  We used to joke that if magical creatures were an option there he’d end up as a Crumple-Horned Snorkack for sure, never mind the holes in the socks and the fact that as far as girls were concerned he might as well have been imaginary.”

She snorted.  “He’ll _wish_ he were imaginary should I ever catch up with him,” she said grimly. Cleopatra purred in violent approval, and lumbered around to sprawl across Neil’s lap. He scratched her ears. McGonagall tucked her needlework away into her bag and unfolded her legs. The four men instantly rose to their feet as she rose to hers.

“You don’t have to go,” Ren said. “Really.”

“I have papers to mark, Master Cartwright. And cats to feed, and as you do seem uninspired to take my advice, I am not one to waste my breath _and_ time.” He blinked as she came over and kissed his cheek. “Try to get some sleep? Poppy will be happy to give you a potion if you ask, I’m sure.”

“I’m not _nervous_!”

“I know.” It sounded more than a bit resigned. “She has potions for that too. A little judicious terror is good for your performance; it keeps you focused and concentrated.”

“In _bed_ ,” Sirius murmured, and sniggered again. The Headmaster smiled pleasantly at him as McGonagall turned to the door, his teeth lengthening rather significantly just for a moment.

“I’ll be back,” he said to them. “I’ll just walk you to your floo, Minerva.”

“Thank you, Neil.”  She took his arm. The door closed behind them.

“Is it just me, or is that a little creepy?” Sirius asked plaintively. “Seems like only two weeks ago that he was a bright-eyed first year, and that she... wasn’t.”

“I’m trying not to think about it,” Ren said. “Thank you. I’ll get there eventually, I’m sure, but that doesn’t mean I’m obliged to contemplate the details along the way.” He waved his wand at the take out containers; they disappeared promptly. He settled back in his chair and tucked his knees up. “Question for you?’

“Mm?”

“Where am I supposed to live after Saturday?’

“How do you mean, cub?” Remus looked puzzled.

“My contract specifically states that I’m only here on consult till after my exams. Those exams end at noon on Saturday.  I can’t imagine that the Board of Governors is going to want to keep me on after that considering that the reason they put the initial deadline down in the first place was that an International Master on staff for his subject is too expensive for their budget.”

 “That,” Sirius said firmly. “Is the _last_ thing you have to worry about.“

“But I won’t be a teacher anymore, Padfoot. I can’t stay here if I’m not a teacher.”

“You’re still the Headmaster’s grandson,” Remus reassured him.  “And Hogwarts reconfigured you on the understanding, didn’t she, that you were to protect the castle at least in part through your practical review of the wards? Don’t worry, cub. Of everything in your life... That is the absolute least of your worries.”

“I’m not _worrying_ ,” Ren said. “Exactly. I was just... Thinking.  It’s not like I can’t afford my own place or anything, or won’t be able to. I’ve just never had to think about it before.”

“Sorry?”

He picked at his sleeve. “It’s just,” he said. “I went from school to the Burrow, to the dragon reserves, to the dorms at the Auror Academy to living with Gin.  These rooms...” He looked around his eminently warm and comfortable environment. “They’re just an extension of the dorms really. And I like them, and I’m in no rush to move out, but now... “

The two men afforded each other, and him, a rather blank look at that.

“You’ve never lived by yourself before?” Sirius asked tentatively. “In a hundred thirty-eight  _years_?”

“Oh well. By myself, sure. The Dursleys made sure of that. But not without other people around, no. “ He traced a hand over the arm of the chair. Cleopatra ambled over; he lifted her, not without some effort, and petted her ears. The fire crackled.

“Do you _want_ your own place?” Remus asked after a moment. “Outside of Hogwarts?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t seem to have much time to think about it.” He look suddenly fatigued to the point of the ill. “Only I haven’t had time to think about anything, have I? Just to do. And more... More just keeps coming at me.”

“Shh.” And all of Sirius’ nerves and anxiety dissipated, just like that. He came to sit on the armchair, and to pull Ren in. "Moony, go run him a bath. No, pup. You’re going to have a good long soak and a glass of wine and then you’re going to bed.”

“It’s not even nine yet!”

“Shush.  Are you alright with the hordes tonight, Rem?” he called through to the loo.

“Of course.” Remus’ voice floated back along with a series of rather hypnotic looking bubbles.  He appeared as Ren struggled to his feet. “I can tell you what else you’re going to do, young man, once this is all over. Even if they do keep you on as a teacher, you’re going to take full advantage of that contractual loophole to claim a good fortnight where you will do nothing but eat, sleep and process everything.”

“I’ll have Dublin to train for. And Dumbledore, and it won’t be long before Riddle...”

“Long enough,” Sirius said.  “And nobody said you couldn’t train.  Hell, I’ll train with you. My Mind Healer’s been saying for awhile now that I need to start working on building up some muscle mass again.”

“We’ll make it a family affair.” Remus nodded. “All those years of skimping on desserts are catching up with me now that we’re back to nightly feasts again.” He patted his perfectly flat stomach. “Bath. Give it over. Now.”

Ren gave it over. By the time Neil returned, he was curled in his bed, sleeping so deeply he barely seemed to be breathing. Sirius lay snugged beside him as Padfoot, chin on his hip as Remus  moved quietly about his rooms, straightening this and that and banking the fire.

“Is he alright?” the Headmaster asked, concerned.

“You tell me,” Remus said, and sighed. “I’m sorry.  He’s worried, of all things, that he’ll get thrown out after his exam.”

“He’s a career orphan,” Neville said, sitting down. “A made one, _and_ a cultivated one. It was always the most relevant thing about him, and he was never allowed to forget it.”

Remus sat beside him. “Neil,” he said after a long, long minute. Then, quietly...  “Neville. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure?”

“Was Harry truly happy with his wife?”

“As happy as he could be. Why do you ask?”

Remus looked into the flames.

“I wonder,” he said. “Siri and I both have. You can love someone, and they can love you. You can be happy with them...  But to permit the Room of Requirement to do what it did to him... For him to allow it... That kind of yearning to self-define, or rather _re_ self-define, must go so deep it works on levels he doesn’t even know he has. Or maybe... Hasn’t ever permitted himself to see. Because it would mean he was a..”

He stopped. Neville waited.

“His aunt,” Remus said. “His uncle. The reports we saw. That Augusta saw, through Her Majesty’s people. They really did rather emphasize words like ‘freakishness’ and ‘abnormality’.  That’s the kind of thing that kids really internalize, isn’t it? Throw in an obsession with a lack of parents and traditional family: no, an entire society’s obsession with your lack of parents and traditional family, and his resemblance to Jamie, and Ginny Weasley’s resemblance to Lils...  Never mind what you described as your world’s drive to make him fit their designated mould...”

The flames crackled.

“It’s rather striking, isn’t it,” the ex-were said, in measured tones. “How much Charlie and Ginny look alike. I hadn’t really noticed it till yesterday, when I saw them side by side. It’s the cheekbones that do it. And the smile. The round face on him really makes the difference, and now that he’s lost so much weight... Were they close in your world? Charlie and Harry, I mean?”

Neville looked at him.

“He hasn’t told you,” he said.

“Told us what?” Sirius appeared at the door.

“Charlie Weasley died of cancer in our home dimension,” Neville said. “Harry was the one who ended things for him. He and Gin... They tried for years to have a child afterwards: another son that he – not they, but he – could name for him.  Most of those who thought they understood him believed that he wanted it as a way of atoning.  The very, very few of us who really did understand him, better than he ever understood himself – and yes, Gin was one of those few, though she was so young when they married, and it took her a fair while – understood that he wanted it because he couldn’t face a world without Charlie in it.”

Sirius sat down.

“But it didn’t happen.”

“No,” Neville said. “It didn’t. It was for the best, really. He was a good father, but it was never easy, and never came naturally.  His kids loved him, but they resented that in him, all of them, at one point or another. His youngest – my godson Al , in particular... They looked exactly alike, and they resented each other for the fact their entire lives. If there’d been a third son, though, that they’d named for Charlie, and if the son had looked anything remotely like a Weasley... It wouldn’t have been hard for Harry  to love him at all. He wouldn’t have had to think about loving him any more than he has to think about breathing. Which makes complete sense, because in all of his life – there has been exactly one person that Harry Potter ever did love that way – as simply, and for his entire life again as it turned out, as unthinkingly, as he breathed.”

Remus Lupin pressed his fingers to his eyes.

“And now it’s happening again,” he said. “It’s happening again. What’s it going to do to him if he can’t be saved?”

“I don’t know,” Neville said. “But we’re going to give him every moment we can to work on the problem.  His contract ends as of Saturday afternoon, and it won’t be renewed.  He’ll retain rights to his quarters here at Hogwarts as my grandson – family quarters are written into my contract, and Hogwarts wants those anti-Wanker wards done up besides, no matter what the Board says, as payment for his regeneration, but he’ll need proper research facilities and his own associated flat to work with in the meantime.”

“That,” Remus said. “We can manage. How are we going to manage it though, without letting on that we know what he hasn’t even figured out, much less told us?”

“He’s our son, Moony,” Sirius said. “We’re allowed to buy him presents, yeah? Really expensive presents, even, proportional to our new income and his deserving celebration of his third International Mastery?”

“Right, right.” He paused. “Just out of curiosity... What would your parents have bought for you, if you’d managed to pull that off? If you’d been on speaking terms with them, anyway?”

“A wife,” Sirius said promptly.  “From Mum, and as for Dad, he would have been so chuffed that he would have offered to knock her up himself to save me the trouble. “

“And I am officially sorry I asked.” His fiancé grimaced. Neil laughed.

“Let me take care of it,” he said, suddenly serious again. “He’s fragile yet on the subject of parents, and I may be his legal grandfather, but it’s a recognized mutual fiction, yeah? What you lot have... Isn’t, and I won’t have you risk it.”

“He should have a place anyway,” Sirius said. “If you think about it, Moony. It’s important, symbolically speaking, really important, that he have his own place in this world, regardless of how close we intend to keep him. I think if we put it like that... There’s less chance of him being hurt or feeling rejected, by any of us, even deep down. Especially deep down.”

Remus leaned over and kissed him.

“You’re right,” he said. “Absolutely right. Alright, Neville. You’re on it. Send us the bills; we reserve that right, anyway.”

Neville nodded, and got to his feet. “Let’s just get through the next few days first,” he said. “And then we should all have a bit of time to breathe.”

“Are we not still worried about attacks and assassination attempts, then?” Sirius asked, a bit ironically. “Three thousand people... What were you _thinking,_ allowing that?”

“I’m the Headmaster, Sirius, not God, and definitely not the Minister of Magic. No, he has no control at Hogwarts, but I’ve been here for less than three weeks. It would be just as easy as not for him to put out the word that I don’t suit to those who _do_ make the decisions if I don’t show an essential willingness to compromise on this level of things, at least, and that’s not something I’m willing to risk. There’s just too much at stake.”

“ _Are_ you compromising? Really?”

“Never and not in any way that would risk anyone under my charge, no. And the Room of Requirement always has been, and always will be, my best ally there. That’s something that absolutely no one can anticipate, and I’ve taken full advantage of the fact.”

 

The two men watched as he let himself out again. Sirius sighed.

“Go on,” he said to his fiancé. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

“I’ll send a house-elf down with your meds.” Remus kissed him. “And once morning comes... Try to convince him to match at least, even if we’ve got no hope of getting him into properly diplomatic clothing?”

“I’ll do my best,” Sirius said. “But I make no promises.” He threw his arms around him suddenly and buried his face in his hair. “I’m really scared, Moony. I wish I could just... Stop being so scared. About everything.”

Remus stroked his back gently with both hands.

“I know, love,” he said. “I know.”

“Can we go away after this? Just the two of us? Back to the cottage, maybe, for a pretend-weekend with the boys, but not?”

“Yes,” Remus said. “Absolutely.” His hand moved to his nape and tugged the dark hair back, tilting Sirius’ throat and nipping lightly at his adam’s apple. He found the little whimpering sound that resulted intensely pleasing. “Your birthday afternoon aside, we have not been getting in _nearly_ enough practice for the wedding night.”

“It’s what happens when you have kids,” Sirius managed, his eyes quite rolling back in his head. “Ohhhh God, Moony...” He gasped sharply as a warm hand slipped down. “What...”

“You know,” his fiancé murmured. “It would be a real shame to waste this opportunity. We’ve shagged in all of the other Houses after all, haven’t we? It would be nice to be able to say we’ve managed the whole... Sett?”

“Harry’s right _here_!”

“Mm. I can hear him snoring quite distinctly. Let’s see...  A nice little locking charm on the bedroom door should do it, and a nice solid _Silencio_ to follow. Excellent. Oh look at that. What a lovely hearth rug he’s got here. Hufflepuffs. They really are a considerate lot, aren’t they?”

Sirius just moaned.


	7. Through Certain Half-Deserted Streets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a flashback. Includes references to what some might think of as unorthodox marital arrangements.

 

The summer before Neville Longbottom was inducted as Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, fourteen-year-old Frankie Alistair Augustine Longbottom taught his father how to shave the Muggle way.  Just home on the train from Eton, his mother, Hannah, took one look at her son and cornered Neville as he came in from his own last day of summer term, calling him into the airy, bright laundry room of the Leaky Cauldron to point out the distressingly obvious.

“He’s gone over all hairy and disgusting,” she said succinctly as he bent down (way down) to kiss her lovely pink lips. “You need to teach him how to shave.”

“What do I know about shaving?” her husband said blankly. “I’ve only ever used the charm.”

“Balls if I know,” Hannah Abbott Longbottom said. “But there it is.  Your Gran's coming for dinner two nights from now, and if you don’t manage it, we’ll be hearing about it for the rest of our natural lives.”

With that indubitable incentive, the bemused father had gone off to find his dark-haired, dark-eyed sturdy son. He found him in the kitchens, stirring a pot with his wand as he demolished a huge sandwich. Frankie waved his wand at him in greeting. Chocolate silk pudding flew everywhere.

“Dad!” he hailed around a mouthful of assorted cheeses and chutney. “How was work?”

“Hairy,” Neville said. “Not as hairy as you are, though. Mum’s ordered us to do something about it, on pain of Gran’s incipient displeasure. Want to take a run down to the Muggleside chemist with me after dinner, and we’ll figure out what you’ll need?”

“Ah,” Frankie said after a moment. “No, it’s okay. I’ll do it.”

“Do _you_ know what you’ll need?”

“No,” he said. “But I’ll find out.” He patted his father’s arm. “No worries, Dad. All’s good.”

Later that evening, Neville found himself sitting on a stool in this family loo while his son lined up the accessories on the counter and the pages of the instructional printout that he’d fetched up from the local cybercafé.

“Seems pretty straightforward,” Frankie said, unscrewing the cap on the shaving cream and taking a whiff. “Bleah. Smells like dirty socks.” Neville shook his head. Frankie caught his expression. “What?”

“Just thinking about how I would have dealt with all of this at your age,” he said. “I wouldn’t have even begun to know where to look for answers, much less had the guts to go out and retrieve them on my own.”

“Mm,” was all Frankie said in return, before turning and examining his father judiciously. “How’s the Animagus training going?’

“Still at it,” he said. “Why?”

“You’ve got an awful lot of hair in your ears suddenly. Here, see? And you’ve gained a couple of pounds too. Whatever’s coming, it’s going to be huge. And furry.”

Neville swatted at him as he prodded. “Never mind my ears,” he said. “Mind your face, or Gran will.”

Frankie turned obligingly back to the papers, and they’d worked their way through the instructions together.  Forty minutes later, they were both shiny-faced and scrubbed. Neville healed his three cuts with a quick cure-all, but Frankie was proudly sporting six assorted plaster dots.

“I can fix those,” his father offered.

“Next time. First time’s a rite of passage, specially when there’s blood involved. I’m a _man_ now.”

As bloody rites of passage went, Neville Longbottom reflected as he ruffled his son’s hair fondly, it was certainly better than his own historical alternative... Two nights later at dinner, Augusta Longbottom examined her great-grandson critically. Neville shot her a warning look as her eyes fixed on the plasters. Frankie just ladled her a scoop of glazed carrots. Surprisingly...

“The shaving charm is a bit tricky,” Augusta conceded magnanimously. “Any number of wizards never manage the knack of it. “

"Is that right?” Frankie said encouragingly, helping her to lamb. As always, Neville was completely in awe of the way his son managed his grandmother. Bland and blasé didn’t even begin to cover it.  If it hadn’t been for the fact that Frankie was the spitting image of every other Longbottom male at that age (without the podge; he had a rather bemusing passion for cricket and rugby, and even more bemusingly, the athletic skills to match), Neville might have seriously wondered whether there’d been a mix-up at St. Mungo’s on the day he was born.

“Mm. Your great-grandfather- my husband – was an excellent wizard, but preferred to use a Muggle straight razor his entire adult life.  Though in his case, it came down to his wand core; his had the heartstring of a Norwegian Ridgeback. All those spikes, _and_ the bad attitude... They were fond of each other, but it was prone to fits of temper. Your father’s wand core is unicorn hair. Much more _sedate_.”

That last, Neville suspected, was a direct dig at his lately and dismayingly increased waistline. Frankie didn’t... quite... shoot him a smirk, but it was a close thing. Neville kicked him hard under the table. _That_ wasn’t a close thing at all; he scored a direct hit. Frankie yelped, but took the hint.

 “Makes sense,” his son agreed, and for the sake of his shins, if not the entertainment value, prudently diverted the subject. “You still got it around?”

“Do I have... What around?”

“Great-Granddad’s shaving kit. Wouldn’t mind a proper one to take back to Eton with me. Unless you want it, Dad?” He’d leaned over again. “Definitely on the verge of a breakthrough. The ear-hair’s back again. With _friends_.”

“You are a rude, rude little boy,” his father informed him. “Remind me again why your mother and I went through so much trouble to produce you?”

“Because neither of you can cook for balls. How’s the roast, Gran?”

“Rather more admirable than your language.’ Augusta Longbottom narrowed her eyes at her grandson once more.  “Have you put on weight _again_ , Neville?’

Neville couldn't help himself. It just... slipped out. Eight weeks and a completed Animagus transformation later, of course, had offered the obvious explanation, but just at that point...

He _growled._ No, he _snarled_. Long, low, and the house-elf just popping in with the decanted wine screeched and flung up her arms in terror. The bottle crashed to the floor, along with the glasses. Hannah whipped her wand out and tidied up, glaring at her grandmother-in-law.

“That,” she said. “Was completely uncalled for. Do we comment on the number of liver spots and wrinkles _you’ve_ sprouted since we last saw you, you nasty old bat?”

Hannah had her own way of handling Gran. Lines like that were guaranteed to send her into offended silence: a state which his wife had learned quite early on in their marriage made life considerably easier for her, if not Neville himself... Neville didn’t begrudge it, though. He didn’t encourage it, mind you, but...

“It’s not an insult,” Augusta said, again remarkably mildly. “Neville is a naturally big man, Hannah, but I too, have noticed the ears, _and_ the fact that nearly seventy-three is a bit old for a growth spurt.”

“Huh?”

“Your trousers are up over your socks,” she informed her grandson. “A good inch since the last time I saw you. Promotion to Headmaster is one thing, but it generally comes with a rise in pay and prestige, not in physical height.”

Neville blinked at her. Hannah, distracted, frowned.

“Stand up,” she commanded her husband. He pushed back his chair and obliged. She stood on her toes, measuring herself against him, then kissed him. Hard, and with a great deal of sloppy, obvious tongue. Yes, he thought as he literally scooped her off her feet... His wife definitely had a way of handling Gran.

“You needn’t be quite so obvious, dear,” Augusta said. “I know exactly what you’re doing. What do you think, Frank?”

“They’re my mum and dad. I try not to think along those lines; I hear quite enough of them when they forget to cast their Silence charms.”

“Don’t be crass, boy,” she’d said tartly. “Honestly, you’re as bad as your grandfather ever was at your age. I’m not above soaping out your mouth for the fact anymore than I was him, you know.”

“You soaped Dad’s mouth?” Neville’s lips popped. Hannah dangled patiently. “Wait, Dad _swore_? Enough to rate the scouring charm?”

“Yes. It’s how we knew he was destined to be an Auror – and how we knew you weren’t. You were always such a well-spoken young man, once you got past the stuttering and stammering anyway.”

“He might have gotten over that faster,” Hannah said with asperity, “if that arsewipe Algie hadn't done things like throw him in the sea to see if he’d sink, and drop him from third-storied windows to see if he’d bounce.” She’d wriggled slightly. Neville put her down. She plonked herself down in her chair and spelled a third of the platter of roast onto his plate.

“Dad had a mouth on him,” he repeated. “You never told me that before. What other bad habits did he have?”

“Extremely poor taste in jumpers.” Her eyes focused pointedly on the burnt orange specimen he was wearing. Hannah smirked. She’d found the wool at a Muggle garden sale last half-term, and had bribed Susan Bones with one of Frankie’s thirty-six egg pound cakes to render it into something that Augusta Longbottom would find suitably horrific. “The colour is fine on you, Neville – oddly enough – but it makes your stomach bulge.”

And that _had_ been a direct challenge.

“Gran,” Frankie had said reproachfully. “Now you’re just being mean. The ears, the extra inch, the growl... He’s obviously working himself up to something big, soon, and the pounds are probably needed to fuel it.” He focused on his father. “Have you been eating anything in particular lately, Dad? Or had any weird cravings, like?”

“Yes. Rude little boys,” his father said automatically, but there was no bite in it. _God,_ Neville thought, he loved his son.  He reached over and pulled him in for a hug, burying his face in his hair. Frankie squawked – once – but permitted it. He even leaned into him, when he left off. Gran sniffed a bit, disapprovingly

“He’s getting a bit big for that, don’t you think?”

“He’ll never be too big for it, will you, Frankie?’

“Yes,” Frankie said. “But there are worse things.” He’d looked directly at his grandmother and gone straight for the vengeful jugular. “Like growing up with parents who couldn't hug you at all, I suppose.”

“Damn,” Hannah said when they’d settled into bed that night. “That was bloody _vicious_.”

“It was,” Neville agreed, a bit troubled. “And I know he thought he was defending me, but... D’you think I should say something to him? She’s really getting on, after all.”

“No,” she said firmly. “There’s getting on, and then there’s just getting your dig in. We both know she’s proud of you, really proud of you, Nev – but even if she is pushing a hundred fifty now, she’s as sharp as she’s ever been, and that habit of trying to keep you humble by taking a crack at you every time you succeed at something is just as obnoxious now as it was when we were first years at Hogwarts. Never mind that all that verbal sugar she’s constantly shoveling into Frankie might as well be fed him along with the line ‘you’re obviously damaged, dear, so we just won’t mention it.’ “

“She doesn’t do that.”

“Oh, she does too.” She’d rolled into his shoulder and flung an arm over him. “She didn’t even ask him how his term went, or how his friends were, or... Anything. She just complimented him on his damned roast seven times, like he’s some kind of savant, and that bit about your granddad and the shaving charm? Frankie might not be all that Magical, but he’s not _stupid_ , Neville. He knows when he’s being patronized. That charm doesn’t require any wand movements, or anything but the inherent desire to be half-way hygienic.”

“To be fair,” Neville said, “personal hygiene's not a priority at his age.” A soft knock sounded at the door. He pulled the blanket up.

“Come on in,” he called.

“Dad?” Frankie poked his head in. “Can I...”

He beckoned him over. He sat on the end of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make that crack about Grandpa and Grandma. Not in the way it came out, anyway. I was just... She’s always so _mean_ to you.”

It was uncharacteristically emotional. Neville sat up and beckoned him over further. His son crawled beside him.

“She’s had a hard life, Frankie,” he said. “A harder one than anyone can ever imagine. The war ended for the rest of us. It never did, for her.”

“Can’t she just... learn to see the good bits?’

“Our surviving children are supposed to _be_ the good bits,” he said. “Recompense.” He stroked the dark hair. “She loves me. I know that. I’ve always known that. She’s just always worried on losing me too. It was her biggest fear back when I was small. She’d lost Mum and Dad in every way but the purely physical, and I was Heir to _Longbottom_ , Frankie. Do you know what she’d have been expected to do if I’d turned up Squib?”

“Turn you out?”

“Either that, or arrange an accident.”

His son sat up, shocked. Beside him, Hannah's mouth dropped a bit. She was an Abbott; of course she knew how things worked (or used to work) on certain levels of Pureblooded society, but still. One didn't _talk_ about them.

“You mean when Algie the Arsewipe threw you out the window...”

“He didn’t expect magic of me,” Neville confirmed. “He got it, but in his mind... He was stepping in for her. Performing a kindness, really; asking her to dispose of me when she’d already fought so hard for Mum and Dad’s lives would have been a bit much in anybody’s eyes.”

He stared, horrified. “They – the family – wanted to _kill_ Grandpa and Grandma?”

“No one would have blinked an eye,” he said. “Most would have winked. She put them in St. Mungo’s for their own safety. They were legally protected there, and if they’d been kept at home...”

“That’s _horrible_ ,” Frankie said, with all of the encompassing naive passion of the young and inexperienced.

“Yes,” Neville agreed. “It is. But... It’s been a trade-off, hasn’t it? She saved them, preserved them – but her life’s been the one that’s been horrible in exchange, Frankie.”

“It didn’t have to be,” he said stubbornly “It’s a decision, isn’t it, past the point? To be happy, I mean?”

Neville Longbottom kissed his son’s brow.

“It is,” he agreed.

“What would you have done to Algie,” his son asked. “If he’d tried that on with me?”

Something awoke in Neville Longbottom’s chest at that- something feral and enormous and vicious. It twisted and lumbered up and stretched, pushing aside every human cell in his body in favour of its own. His skin stretched and pulled, heated to burning...

“Dad. _Dad!”_

“ _Neville_!” It was snapped out: alarmed and panicked. He jerked himself back. He was sitting up, panting as if he’d run a mile full out, drenched in sweat. His pajama top was in shreds. The sheet was in shreds. His son was wide-eyed, across the room, back pressed to the wall. Hannah was on her knees beside him in her nightgown, turning his face to her and kissing him hard. He kissed her back automatically.

Slowly he calmed. The burning faded.

“What,” he said. “What...” He looked down. Huge, no, gigantic claw marks were dug into the mattress, raking them and shredding them straight through to the support slats. He held up his hands. They ached and shook with residual strain and pain. Frankie picked himself up and came over cautiously to poke at the remains of the bed.

“Only I don’t think,” he said. “Whatever you’re going to be... That it’s going to be terribly... What was the word Gran used... _Sedate_?”

Hannah burst into giggles at that. The giggles turned to howls, the howls to roars... She fell back, hiccuping madly. Neville reached for his wand and turned it to the task of repairing the mattress and bedclothes.

“Did I hurt you,” he said. “Either of you?” He was a bit dizzy now, and absolutely starving. He didn’t wait for an answer, just reached for his dressing gown. Frankie clambered to his feet.

“Where are you going?” he said, alarmed.

“Kitchen,” he said. “Hungry.”

“I’ll fix you something.” Frankie followed him out. Hannah sat up, still giggling, and reached for her own dressing gown. Once downstairs, the two sat and watched him work his way through two huge trays of honey biscuits and the accompanying tea with thick cream. He ate both mindlessly and deliberately, hunched over and sweating hard again. Hannah touched his hand.

“Maybe you should go to the country estate for the next few weeks,” she said. “Till the back-to-school rush starts. You’re close, and you’re obviously going to need elbow room. Frankie and I can apparate through in the evenings.”

“It’d be fun,” Frankie said encouragingly. “I can teach you how to fish! Mullet in Upper Third taught me how to make these really wicked flies.”

“Fish,” Neville repeated. He lowered his hand, with the last half-eaten honey biscuit, and had bolted for the loo. Frankie winced. Hannah went to put more tea on: peppermint, this time. When Neville returned, he looked pale, but composed.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “Yeah. I reckon maybe... Maybe it’s a good idea.”

“Call Draco,” Hannah encouraged. “He’d love to go with you.”

Her husband shot her a half-humorous look at that one. She smirked at him, out of careful eye-shot of their son. He came over and hugged her tightly; she stood on her toes and kissed his ear, then bit it lightly. Not for the first time, Neville Longbottom thanked his lucky stars that fate had sent him quite possibly the most equable woman, sexually speaking, on the face of the planet... He hadn’t actually intended to fall into the (extremely, extremely, _extremely_ ) discreet Gentleman’s Arrangement that he’d maintained with Draco Malfoy since the year after his wife Astoria died, and he never would have dreamed on it without Hannah’s active encouragement, but then again, it wasn’t as if he’d never experimented with other men before the two of them got married. That tourney she’d made him run to prove he was straight had really been more of one to prove that he was bi. Mind you, he reflected as he accepted the soothing peppermint tea, it wasn’t as if she didn’t get anything out of the arrangement. Tit for tat, as the saying went, or rather the other way around...  Hufflepuffs who’d spent a good portion of their Hogwarts careers snuggled under cozy patchwork quilts in the company of their favorite room-mates, after all, were not exactly in positions to throw stones, and happily, the adult Susan Bones wasn’t any more inclined toward permanent attachments than Draco was.

“Call him,” Hannah repeated gently. “I’m worried, Nev. You’re obviously not going to be some fluffy little bunny, are you, and it’s far too late to stop things now. You shouldn’t be alone when it happens.”

He hunched his shoulders again at that.

“Maybe,” he said. And then... “I’m scared, Hannah. What kind of thing leaves claw marks like that? What kind of thing is so big that it makes me _grow_? That’s not typical with the Animagus transformation; it’s not supposed to affect your human form at all!”

“You’re not typical,” she pointed out. “You never have been.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

She sat beside him and took his hand. She shook her head as Frankie got up to leave.

“No,” she said. “Stay. Your dad’s going to be changing soon, and you need to understand what’s going on.”

“Hannah...”

“Shh.” She put her fingers over his lips. “We can’t pretend, Neville, that what the Lestranges did to your parents that night...”

He flinched.

“It _affected_ you,” she said firmly. “In many, many ways. Maybe all the ways that count, and as you grew,  it made you who and what you are. As a baby you couldn’t protect anyone, but that doesn’t mean the drive hasn’t been there along, or since, has it? Your Animagus form... It’s bound to be a reflection of that. Something as big as you were small, as strong as you were weak, as terrifying as you were helpless, as potentially dangerous as you weren’t.” She traced his cheekbone. “Whatever lies beneath... That’s who you are. Someone who, when it comes right down to it, and it’s important, really important that you remember this, Neville Longbottom – first sprouted his real claws at the merest idea that someone might threaten his son.”

“What if I hurt someone?”

Hannah snorted.

“I get the definite impression,” she said. “And I don’t think I’m wrong... That anyone you’d have the instinct to  hurt would deserve it. And you’ll still have your mind,” she added. “It’s not like you go all animal.”

He sighed. His shoulders loosened a bit.

“You don’t think it’s a coincidence, do you?” Frankie said curiously. “That you’re manifesting now?”

“Uh?”

“You’re going to be Headmaster,” he said. “With all those kids to protect and care for. Officially. Only it’s bound to speed things up if what Mum says is right, isn’t it?”

Neville ran a hand through his hair. It stuck up wildly.

“I suppose,” he said. “I’m going to go take a shower. I’m all over sweat.’

Two days later an owl arrived, bearing a package for Frankie. In it was his great-grandfather’s old shaving kit, charmed to remain in as good condition as it had ever been. Frankie lay the accessories out on the counter in the family loo, poked at them a bit, then picked up his wand, and before his father’s astonished eyes, cast a perfect shaving charm.

“What...”

Frankie put the wand down and tucked everything away.

“You never asked me if I could cast the charm, Dad,” he said. It was gentle, but a bit reproving. “You just assumed that I wouldn't be able to.”

“I couldn’t cast it at your age,” Neville admitted. “I was always really patchy after, and had to follow it up with magical depilatory. I’m sorry.”

His son sat opposite him, pushing the kit over.

“Keep it,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because the charm is fine, but it’s not fun,” he said. “Shaving the Muggle way is fun. The ritual of it, and all the steps, and the risk of cutting your own throat... It’s not just a hygienic necessity; it reminds you that you’re a man. On that really visceral level.”

Neville watched him as he bopped out, humming, and rubbed at his aching, swollen knuckles till they threatened to bleed.

From that day on, he never used a shaving charm again. Too, one of the first things he did when he was reborn was to sneak up to the attic, rummage through his grandfather’s old trunk, and retrieve the equivalent kit. He’d sat on the floor and laid the accessories out, one by one, running his fingers over them over and over as he thought on the things that made a man a man, and the things that reduced him to less-than.

He packed up the kit and placed it back in the trunk (he was only nine, after all, and wouldn’t need it for another six years or so – never, if he was lucky and things went according to plan), making his way back down to the kitchens of Longbottom Manor. There, he summoned all of the elves, and under orders of related silence, had them start collecting ingredients for the Somnolia potion that he’d planned to feed this new world’s version of Augusta Longbottom... Less than a week later, he was on the barge to Azkaban, and to Bellatrix Lestrange’s cell. Rodolphus and Rabastan could wait a bit, he thought, and as for Barty Crouch Jr...

He regretted it, but he’d left Crouch to his parents’ plan to free him. Neville had no doubt that Harry would want to free Sirius Black by any method possible when he returned, and that meant that Peter Pettigrew could only be thought on as a non-viable resource. The scales had to balance, in turn, though, and _someone_ had to be available to help provide Voldemort with a body that could be disposed of when the moment came.

Bellatrix Lestrange, though, was fair game. Had been fair game.

In the Headmaster’s quarters, nineteen months later, Neil Cartwright placed his grandfather's cleaned straight-razor down on the sink next to the array of related accessories and reached for the damp warm towel alongside to clean off the last of the shaving cream. The door opened quietly behind him, and a lean, wiry tabby cat slipped in. He glanced over, tossing the towel aside as Minerva McGonagall took human form, and came forward to straighten the high collar of his robes – slate-blue raw silk this time, over a three-piece dove grey suit and a navy silk dress shirt. Jade and silver cufflinks in the shape of roaring Kodiak bears completed the outfit.  

“Very nice,” she said approvingly. “The Lestranges’ vaults have done well for themselves over the years, if not the Lestranges themselves.”

“Mm,” he agreed. “Everything alright downstairs?’

“Of course,” the Deputy Headmistress said. “Though, it being Patronus Week on top of everything else...” It came out ‘ _ev’rathin’ ailse –_ “We are awash in joyous spectres at every turn. Miss Rhodes almost has it, I believe. Perhaps if we were to lock her in a broom closet with young Jax King once she recovers, it would do the trick?””

“Mm” he agreed. “The tension there _is_ rather obvious.” He made no move on her – he hadn’t yet, in any way. She pulled back and examined him.

“Are ye well, Neil?” she asked. Her crisp accent softened considerably when they were alone, he’d noticed.

“Bit nervous, I suppose,” he said. “Not everyone’s coming in just to meet Ren, I’m aware.”

“No,” she agreed. “They’re not.”

“I plan to hold a ball in his honour,” Neil said. “Next month. He’ll hate it, but three International Masteries rate that much from his family, don’t you think?”

“That will be very nice,” she said approvingly again. “D' ye dance, then?”

“I do,” he said. “As a matter of fact. Your counterpart taught me.”

“Did she.”

“Mm. Would you do me the honour of accompanying me formally this time around?”

A dark eyebrow lifted. “Formally,” she repeated.

“Mm,” he said again. She reached up and flicked away a tiny dot of cream, just behind his ear.

“I will consider it,” she said, and turned.

“Minerva,” he said. She turned back.

 “Do you know about the Headmaster’s Oath?”

She looked him over. “I take it,” she said. “That we are na’ discussin' this in the context of a pretty story?”

“No.”

“And we are discussin’ it the noo... Why?”

“I took it back home,” he said quietly. “And I’ve taken it here, again.”

There was a profound silence.

“That’s the kind of Oath that changes a man,” she said. “If a’ the pretty stories be true.”

“They are,” he said. “And yes. It is.”

She considered him. Her hair was very black yet, he thought. The grey had come in quickly and completely once war had broken out in earnest.

“Have you told Augusta yet?” she asked. Her accents were crisp and precise again.

“Not yet.”

“And you thought it prudent to warn me first?” it was very dry. “You are a considerate man, Neil Cartwright.”

“I try,” he said.

“You may escort me,” she conceded. “And I will take the first dance. After that... We will see what we will see.”

She swept out, transforming back to cat form before slipping down the stairs of the Headmaster’s Tower that led to Dumbledore’s now completely renovated office. He watched her go, and turned to look out the sitting room windows. The view of the Forbidden Forest and the main gates just to the south there was spectacular. His breast-pocket chimed. He reached behind the ivory handkerchief and extracted the two way mirror.

“Ren!” he greeted him. “Are you ready?”

“I’m up,” Ren said, yawning. “I’m dressed. I have my wands. I have my biros. I have my broom. Sirius is getting me... Oh good. Mmm. Coffee. Thanks, Sirius. Alright. Yeah, I guess so.” He slurped. “Mm. Hazelnut!”

“I’ll meet you in the front hall,” Neil said, and tapped the mirror. “Wait, _that’s_ what you’re wearing?”

“Yes. It is. It’s a Quidditch t-shirt. How much more Wizarding can you get?”

“You do recall that this isn’t just an International event, but one that you’re being graded on, yeah?”

“They’re not going to mark me down for my clothes, mate. If they complain, I’m told that I can just take them off and they’ll mark me right up again.” He yawned again. “On my way.”

Neil shook his head, tucked the mirror away, and strode towards the stairs.


	8. The Muttering Retreats

**Wednesday November 19, 1991**

**7.30 A.M.**

“Final word: Hogwarts today, Alexandria tomorrow, Rio on Fri.... Whoa! Incoming!” Sirius dodged as a sleek silvery-white greyhound bounded down the corridor, hard on the tail of a somersaulting miniature dolphin. Patronus Week was, indeed, in full swing, and Remus Lupin's success rate thus far was quite phenomenal. Fully thirty percent of his NEWT students’ efforts had achieved corporeal status by the end of the second day of formal classes, helped along, the ex-were had reported, with the incentive of a promised Friday evening field trip to the Three Broomsticks for all those who accomplished the charm by the end of November.

 “You’re bribing them to do their homework?’ Ren had feigned disapproval over lunch on Tuesday. “I’m shocked, Professor Lupin. Appalled. Dismayed. At them, not you. All that effort in exchange for a plate of fish and chips and a couple rounds of butterbeer? They should have held out for firewhiskey, at least.”

“That’s on tap for all of them who manage it during the stress of the final exam," Remus explained. “A bottle apiece. They’ll all be legal, never mind officially graduated, so ...”

“Whatever works?”

“It’s a handy spell. And if they can cast it in front of Griselda Marchbanks, they’ll have absolutely no problem with Dementors. Ever.”

“That one’s nice.” Ren craned his neck as a red-breasted cardinal, so sharply articulated that the colours nearly shone through, spiraled past, fluttering coyly around the horn of a gigantic rhinoceros lumbering down the dungeon steps. A half-formed albatross lurched drunkenly in its wake, flopping exhaustedly over the rhinoceros' back halfway down. The rhinoceros seemed singularly unperturbed, just turned left and continued on its way past a small huddled knot of students, all glancing surreptitiously over their shoulders as they whispered furiously to each other. Ren caught several assessing looks, then a definite chink of coin as he passed.

 “What are they doing?” he asked.

“Making bets on whether you’ll sick up. I think _I’m_ going to sick up.”  Sirius was looking increasingly pale as the two resumed their walk from the Sett towards the Great Hall. “How can you possibly, _possibly_ be so calm?”

“I’m not awake enough yet to be tense.”  Ren yawned in demonstration...  Despite the near-universal pressure to conform to European Wizarding style for the occasion, he’d  stuck to his decision to begin as he intended to go on, and was dressed in plain canvas shoes, a pair of navy corduroys, and a zipped fleece jumper over an official Tarapoto Tree-Skimmers t-shirt. Aside from the Nimbus 2000  strapped to his back, the only other things he appeared to have on his person were his wands, two standard pocketfuls of assorted biros, and an extra-large spill-proof coffee mug brimming with a quite indecent amount of even more indecently sweetened hazelnut espresso **.** “D’you think they’ll have iced currant scones at breakfast?”

“Do I... You’re thinking about _food_? At a time like _this_?”

“Of course. “ He wiggled his fingers around his coffee mug at the beaming Fat Friar as they climbed the last set of stairs up from the dungeons. “Can’t do jack on an empty stomach. It’s just not the American way.”

“Alright there, Master Ren?” the Fat Friar called.

“Bit tired. The coffee will take care of that, though. They here yet?”

“They’re just arriving at the gates,” the ghost reported, and eyed him dubiously. “Are you sure you’re going to alright like that? It’s quite cold out today, and lung fever's a terrible way to go. Perhaps a nice warm ro...”

“I’ll be fine.” Ren cut him off, slurping from his mug in demonstration. “Where’s Gramps got to?”

“Ren!”

“Gramps!” He turned. Neville strode towards him, resplendent in his best dress robes.  The man of the hour whistled vulgarly. “Get a load of _you_! You didn’t pry yourself out of your favourite sweater on my account, did you?”

“Please,” the Headmaster said. “It’s in the wash. Front and centre, boys. They’re coming up the walk now.”

They swerved right, joining the contingent of excited students and teachers. Near the very front of the crowd, Hermione, undeterred by her habitual enormous bag of books, was bouncing on her toes, her bushy hair crammed into a maroon wool cap as she chattered excitedly as any of the other first year girls. Next to her, Ron ( _sans_ cap) sat on the steps, leaning half-asleep against the newel post of the great staircase. He waved at them limply as they passed.

“How long has he been sitting there, d’you think?” Ren asked.

“Five thirty or so?” Sirius guessed. “Hermione wanted a front-row seat. “

Ren laughed, and, reaching into his zipped fleece, removed the final item he was carrying - the black felt-lined wool cap done over in gold wool that Susie Bones had ceremoniously presented him as he’d entered the common room just a few minutes earlier. He tugged it over his hair and turned up the brim a bit. A clumsily embroidered badger shambled out from behind his covered cowlick and yawned, settling sleepily over his eye. The Hufflepuffs cheered. He grinned, waved, and offering his jittering father one last bracing slap on the back, slipped out to the front of the crowd beside Neville.

 

* * *

There were twenty official adjudicators. It was an unusually large number, but with all of the major representatives of the International Confederation of Wizards gathered in London, Ren knew, it wouldn’t exactly have been difficult to pull in qualified candidates. The biggest surprise were the goblins; there were three on the adjudicating council itself, but at least a dozen more had come in to watch, accompanied by an exquisitely neutral-faced Bill Weasley.

 Again, the differences between the particular young man and his counterpart drew Ren’s immediate attention. He had thought Bill’s Muggle attire of the past weekend a nod to the singular occasion, but interestingly, that didn’t seem to be the case... He was in that pea-coat and scarf combo again, all over a sleek, pinstriped suit that despite its elegant cut couldn’t even begin to pass as Wizarding style. Oddly, no one seemed to be disconcerted, or even for that matter, to notice. Ren cast a small, puzzled look about. It was more than that, he realized. It wasn’t just that no one cared on Bill’s clothes or attitude; it was that no one seemed to be processing, beyond the fact that he was taking up physical space, that he was _there_. The _goblins_ noticed he was there - they seemed rather hyper-aware of the fact, in fact; the four closest were stepping in front of him like bodyguards every time anyone jostled too closely. Everyone else’s eyes slid right over the man as if bounced.

Ren made no comment, of course. He just bowed pleasantly all around, coffee mug in hand, as the hordes shivered their way through the front doors into the Great Hall. The house-elves had set out a lovely repast and he did full justice to their offerings as the introductions and welcoming speeches dragged on. He was not yet the focus of the day’s events, he knew, and as such, and as he ate, he took full advantage, as Gin would have put it, to get his Auror on.

Staff and students aside, and adjudicators excluded, Ren estimated that there were perhaps two hundred extra people present. The four House tables had been temporarily removed toward the walls, and all of the visitors were seated at not-remotely-random circular alternatives toward the centre of the room. Each of the dignitaries' tables were presided over by varying members of the Hogwarts’ staff. Only the Head Table remained as it had been, though,  for diplomatic reasons and as a nod to the (nominally) academic occasion, no actually political affiliates (including the Minister of Magic) were seated there. Nor was Ren himself, for that matter... He was seated at the first table to the right of the Headmaster's chair, Sirius on one side of him and Minerva on the other, all facing the long line of his adjudicators and Neil himself.

Not all of those extra guests, nor even the majority of them, would be invited to witness the actual physical goings-on from within the Wards Room itself. The security levels demanded of those invited to peruse the secrets and mysteries there were quite extraordinarily high, after all. That being said, the testing for an International Mastery was still a reasonably unusual and noteworthy event no matter the subject, and inevitably provided prime opportunities for both political and academic schmoozing. The welcome breakfast was only the opening event in a three-day drop-in reception for all of the various global alumni and notables who were seizing the opportunity to satisfy their curiosity on the now-notorious former Headmaster Albus Dumbledore's successor. Not many of them had had a chance, after all, to meet him before he took up his official position, and rumours were running rampant... House Longbottom was of ancient and respected lineage, but it had never been a  power in European magical circles. Its fortunes had not been nearly as vast as some, and its leaders inclined to operate behind the scenes rather than in front of it.  Now, though, its coffers (and therefore its perceived influence) were abruptly overflowing, and word had started getting around as well, through his former classmates to their parents, of young Neville Longbottom’s completely unexpected and prodigious magical talent. Most now believed that House Longbottom had known all along of their Heir’s abilities, and had presented him as a near-Squib till he entered Hogwarts for his own safety.  Related theories held that Augusta had been preparing for the day alongside her favoured American cousin, and now that the day had arrived, that cousin had come to Great Britain permanently, in the company of his own extraordinarily gifted grandson, in order to help her guard and raise Frank and Alice’s boy safely to adulthood as acknowledged co-Regent of the family’s ancient House.

They weren’t bad theories, Ren thought. They weren’t even, on the certain level, and insofar as they went, entirely inaccurate ones. Augusta had, indeed, and once Neil had made his permanent transformation, put in a petition that declared him both her son and daughter-in-law's, and young Neville’s, guardian in the case of her death. Algie Longbottom had, unsurprisingly, thrown an utter fit at that... Twenty years younger than Augusta herself, he’d never bothered himself much with anything on House matters, mostly because there wasn’t much there in his mind that mattered. A phenomenally talented great nephew, never mind all of the money that now came with him, were making things rather a different story. As of yet, he hadn’t dared step out of line physically or legally, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t making his best efforts to discredit the familial interlopers anyway.

“Never heard of them before,” he’d declared loudly to anyone who’d listen. “Cartwright? Cartwright? Jumped-up walk-ins, eh? No real Longbottom blood, they’ve got no right, and what do they know of proper European society, anyway? They’re not fit to raise the boy, and where have they been all these years anyway, if they cared so much? Augusta says that they’ve been friends for decades, but I never heard her mention anything like, or saw any owls come in and out!”

“I’m not putting him behind Fidelius,” Ren had said bluntly to Augusta on their second lunch out after he'd regenerated, and before he'd made sure (assigning himself as Secret Keeper) that no one short of God would ever be able to find her or her children. "Not unless you directly ask me to. Mind you, I'll gladly arrange an accident if you'd like; we know what he's hoping for, after all. An accident for you, then another for Neville, then Frank and Alice's tragic, but not unexpected joint demise... I don't even have to read his mind; his body language says it all for him. He just wants the money now, and he doesn't care how he gets it."

“I'm aware,” Augusta had reassured him briskly. “And it'll be fine. No Fidelius necessary; our enemies will assume he’s got an ear to the inside and will leave him be in the hopes that he might actually let something slip on our location.  I’d be most obliged if you would ward his house to that certain extent of course, if only for show – he is my husband's brother, after all, and it’s expected – but that being said, you needn’t put too much effort into it. That way, he’ll be exactly as safe, if it comes down to it,  as Alice and Frank would have been from him if I’d kept them at home all these years, mm?”

Ren had obliged, making yet another mental note never to get on the lady's sour side... Once done, he’d added a small, but rather nasty little hex to the sequences inscribed ‘round the front door that would encourage sickening, vomit-inducing vertigo on the owner should he ever attempt to open, or even look out of, any of the upper-story windows of his abode. He’d removed the incontinence curse on Uncle Vernon, yes, out of pity and in the name of a fresh start, but then again, Uncle Vernon had never attempted to kill him by tossing him out the third story or throwing him off a dock till he nearly drowned.

“He should just be grateful that I’m not hexing the bath to half-drown _him_ every time he steps in,” he’d said truculently to Neil as he’d raised an amused eyebrow. “Only reason I’m not is for everyone else’s sake; hasn’t he ever heard of washing?’

“Washing is a Muggle thing,” he was told. “Cleaning spells do the job just as well, and the capability to cast them proves your genetic superiority.” This had all been said as Ren perched on his bath-stool, watching as he shaved himself deftly with the straight-razor again.

“Seriously? He thinks that?”

“No. Itching powder doesn’t require a cast spell, though, and I, and presumably little Nev, started sprinkling it on his towels from the day he threw me – us? – in the lake. We were young, but we were never stupid, and ground blue-cattle leaf does the trick as well as anything from any joke shop. It’s the major ingredient there, actually.” He’d dipped his razor. “Smells just like honeysuckle if you use a wooden pestle and bowl over a marble one, did you know?”

“And where did you – both of you – pick up that little tidbit?’

“I overheard one of the Welcome Witches talking about it at St. Mungo’s one day when I was visiting Mum and Dad, with Gran. I was... four, I think? It stuck, because the person who came in while we were waiting for our visitor passes was covered in bright blue boils and absolutely reeked of mowed clover. The boils made me want to puke, but the mowed clover was the smell I’d always associated with Great-Uncle Algie.” He shaved off another strip of cream. “I couldn’t always get to his towels, but the house-elves were most obliging when I asked them to help out. They can’t punish their owners for their actions, after all, but nothing says that they can’t punish their owners on word and order of their other owners.”

“Bugger me, Longbottom,” Ren had said with genuine admiration. “No wonder you were always so good at getting what you wanted from the Room of Requirement!”

“There’s a lot more to being an Auror that an ability to cast spells,” Neil said. “And I never wanted to live up to Mum and Dad’s reputation just on Gran’s expectations. I just went about the job in my own way, with the resources I knew I could rely on.” He rinsed his face as he mused on that. “Remember our sixth year, when we were signing up for our NEWT courses?’

“No, not really.”

“Ah. Well, Gran wanted me to sign up for Transfiguration over Charms, even though I got an A in Transfiguration and an E in Charms. Said it was the soft option, and maybe it was because she failed herself, but really, I think she truly saw it that way. Charms are subtle magic. Transfiguration’s... Not. And she never wanted me to be subtle. She wanted me to be like Dad again, out there and in Voldemort’s face. The Longbottoms generally don't tend that way though, either by nature or in action. I don’t know that she ever really processed that Dad was the anomaly there, not me.”

“Beorn’s not exactly subtle,” Ren pointed out. “And neither are you, like this.”

“Beorn,” Neil said. “Was not conceived in the familial marriage bed. Beorn was, and always will be, a byblow of the Lestranges. As for the rest of me...” He looked down at himself. “There are times to stand back and times to stand out. For now, at least, blending in is not on my priority list.”

“You _want_ people to be afraid of you?” his putative grandson asked curiously. “Only, you know, the ears and feet aren’t really helping there.”

“Oh, but they are. You said yourself, didn’t you, how difficult it is to manage the consistent partial Animagus transformation?”

“Yeah, but you never said how you manage it in the first place. I do remember that.”

 “I did. I said that I transformed for the first time in the Room of Requirement,” his friend said. “An hour after taking my Oath. The magics of the school became a part of me, but so did the magics of the Room itself. Everything there shifts constantly, according to your desire. Your need. Now, if I need ears, I get ears. If I need feet, I get feet. If I need claws...” He popped his nails out and held them up to the light. “It’s not me, really, and it’s certainly not inherent, born talent. Nobody needs to know that, though, do they?”

“Subtlety,” Ren agreed, and peered at his completely nondescript face in the mirror. “I’m a big fan of it, myself.”

“Three _thousand_ people,” Neil had said sourly. “Sure you are. Pass me my aftershave there, would you?”

Ren obliged, sniffing. “Mm,” he said. “Tartan!” Neil smacked his head, not terribly gently.

“Shut it, you git,” he said. “It’s heather.”

“Same thing, innit?”

The next blow, though soft, knocked him on his arse off the stool, but he just lay there and laughed... Neil retracted his claws and ignored him superbly, as only the grandson of Dame Lady Augusta-of-any-world Domitia Claudia Longbottom could.

"I don't know what she was going on about," Ren said finally, sitting up. "She was a spy for the _Queen_ , for God's sake. That takes a ton of subtlety, so why wasn't she just proud that you were like her after all? Also," he added. "I've seen Cousin Gussie's charms. If your Gran's talents matched hers, there's no way she failed that OWL anything but intentionally."

"Mm,' Neil said. "Well, I never said that she wasn't conflicted. I suppose from her point of view that spies are all very well, and there's no doubt that they're useful and essential, but they're not often known as the heroes, are they? I imagine she wanted her version of better for the both of us. Never mind that she goes around all day every day with a great bloody vulture on her head that promises to rip and tear the carrion bodies of her enemies. That's about as unsubtle as it gets, if you have the brains to recognize the symbolism inherent, anyway."

"Isn't your Patronus a vulture now?"

"Yep. She passed it onto me when she died."

"Killer bear, carrion vulture... Why hasn't anyone ever realized just how scary you really are, mate?"

"Because I didn't want them to," the former Neville Longbottom said bluntly.

"And now?'

"Now I do."

"Why?" he asked bluntly in return. Neil turned to look him over.

"Because it's needed," he said. "And I'm good at it... And I don't need a new face that allows me to be the man I always was. I just need to let what was always there..." He gestured with the razor. "Out."

Ren examined him carefully.

"I dunno," he said, and then, anxiously. 'I don't want you to lose yourself, Nev. This world... It's not like ours was. We're just making it up as we go along  now. No prophecy, no nothing. There can't be, not the same one anyway."

"Will you let go of that damned thing already?" Neville said, fondly exasperated. "Do you have any idea how many different ways there were to interpret it in retrospect? Dozens. No, hundreds. It got to be a running joke down the Leaky with the girls on Hannah's Hen nights; they'd all make teams and up with the wildest ways to interpret the Proclamation of the Ages. The official version was only ever one, and not even the most likely when it came down to it."

"I really missed a lot, working all those late nights chasing Dark Wankers, didn't I?'

"You did. Yes you did. And Beorn was most perturbed when he realized that they kicked me out of the Aurors, and never let me forget it as long as I lived. So this time it's my turn to hunt them all down, and your turn to sit back and watch the flowers grow, alright?"

"Am I allowed to duel them if they try to eat me, at least? The flowers, I mean?"

"I suppose so," he said magnanimously. 'And if Riddle gets to the snake, you can take it this time. Two Horntails have to be at least as good as one basilisk, after all."

The Horntails hissed from Ren's sleeves in happy agreement.

 

* * *

 

Back in the Great Hall, Ren continued to look around. Fudge and his contingent of governmental and journalistic groupies were there of course, as the Minister of Magic was still on that active campaign to recruit Ren as an in-house resource.  Ren didn’t like the man any more than he had his counterpart in his long-ago past, and he certainly didn’t intend to sign on his lackey, but he couldn’t blame him for his persistence. The scars from the First Wizarding War were just a decade old in this world; they ran deep and bled freely yet, and the awareness that Voldemort, however disembodied, was still floating about, Ren was aware, had to be giving everyone in the know absolute kittens. Amelia Bones and Rufus Scrimgeour, Alastor Moody’s second-in-command in the Aurors (and if history were to follow here, soon-to-be successor) were proof of _that_. Their presence at an event such as this one was completely unorthodox by any definition, and that could only mean one thing; they had come, in the aftermath of the reports of his skills in Edinburgh and their analysis of his one-man massacre at the Lovegoods, to assess the reports of his other credentials.

Ren’s eyes moved away, and over to the second table of visiting dignitaries. Lucius Malfoy was seated there, tea in hand, watching Ren closely and curiously as Fudge prattled at him and his table-mates. Ren caught his eye just for the hell of it, and raised his coffee in a small, ironic toast.  Malfoy, surprisingly, lifted his own cup in acknowledgement, and without the slightest accompanying curl to his lip at that... He didn’t seem remotely repulsed by Ren’s appearance. Then again, perhaps he simply didn’t think it prudent to let whatever distaste he had show.

Ren's eyes moved on again. Directly across from Malfoy, Snape was nursing his own coffee, heavy lidded and looking somewhat less than half-awake. Lily sat next to him, in her guise of Eulalia Shelley, shredding a cinnamon bun. Ren hadn’t talked to her since the Saturday evening he’d first dragged her to, then abandoned her in, the Sett (he still had no idea what had impelled him to go to her in the first place, and as further interaction would doubtless demand of him an explanation, he was simply avoiding the follow-up) but it occurred to him for the first time as she caught his eye briefly and smiled a little that this was the type of event that would absolutely _wreck_ a mother’s nerves.

Suddenly the sleepy, half-lidded look in Snape’s eyes made a great deal more sense.

_She’s been up all night worrying. And he’s been up all night telling her that everything is going to be just fine._

Despite his chronic mixed feelings on the subject of the woman in question, the former Harry Potter’s stomach warmed a bit at that. Warmed, and flopped over heavily, and twisted violently as every inclination to analyze the current-and-related socio-political climate abruptly dissolved.

 _Oh God_.  _I’m about to sit the exams on the only subject in my life that I ever really loved.  That ever really mattered to me. That was ever really_ mine.

He must have made a small sound of dismay...  From the third table, back to back with him, Remus glanced over his shoulder and tilted his head back.

“Alright there, cub?” he murmured, his voice barely audible.

Ren just put down his fork. Next to him, Minerva patted his shoulder, and, not missing a beat of her conversation with a hyper-excited and appropriately babbling Professor Babbling, passed two small vials his way. Ren uncorked them and gulped. Mint for the roiling gut, followed by the bright citric chaser of the calming potion...  He nearly gagged, his toast sitting like a rock in his stomach. Still watching him, Lucius Malfoy’s lips actually twitched.

“Why’s he here?” Ren muttered to Sirius, attempting to distract himself.  “I wouldn’t have thought he’d make an appearance till tomorrow at the earliest. It's not like they're going to let him into the Wards Room to watch, are they?'

 “Maybe he’s noticed his drawing room wards degrading and is thinking he might hire you to come in and fix them?”

That actually earned him a snort... At the Head Table, Neil stood.

 Sirius squeezed Ren's hand under the table. Fudge beamed at him fatuously.  Amelia Bones caught his eye and nodded in acknowledgement, her eyes resting just for a moment on his soft black and gold cap snugged over his hair and around his ears.  Her lips flicked up approvingly.

Ren pushed his chair back.  He didn’t vomit, but it was a close thing. Suddenly, the Headmaster – Neil – _Neville_ – was there, enfolding him in a huge, reassuring hug. 

_Grandfather. Right. He’s supposed to be..._

“Do us proud, mate,” Neville Longbottom whispered in his ear, and Ren – Harry, just in that moment he was entirely and only Harry – blinked back tears as he realized that Neville was referring to everyone _but_ those actually and physically present.

“I’ll try,” he managed. “Thanks, Gramps.”

One by one, the other Hogwarts professors came forward to shake his hand. Snape’s eyes were unfathomable and black as always as he looked down at him.

“Good luck, Cartwright,” he said smoothly.

“Thanks,” he said.  Lily was the last in line. She held out her hand. Her fingers were still a bit sticky from the cinnamon bun. She jumped a little as he spelled them clean silently.

“What.. Oh. Um. Well... Good luck, then.”

“Thanks,” he said again, and as she turned away... “Professor Shelley?”

She turned back hopefully. 

“Erhm,” her son said.  _Nope. That’s all I’ve got. Hadn’t thought beyond that, really_.  “You’ve got a bit of icing in your...” He gestured to her hair.  She pulled the tendril forward and crossed her eyes at it.

“Allow me,” Snape said, smoothly again, and seconds later, the strand, too, was spelled clean.  Ren couldn’t help himself.

 _My_ mother’s _here. In_ person _._

“Professor Shelley,” he found himself saying again.

“Yes?”

“I’ve heard you don’t like being cold.”

 Her eyes rested on him quizzically. “No,” she said. “No, I can’t say that I do.”

Ren dug in his pocket, and pulled out a pack of biros, coming over to take her wrist and push her sleeve back.  She jumped a bit, and watched as he inscribed a neat, complex series of sigils over her pulse point in three layered colours: first green, then blue, and a deep, glowing white. It took less than a minute. He shook his left-hand wand out – the one who’d transferred her loyalties over from Snape – and tapped the sigils three times. At the back of his mind, the female Horntail purred approvingly.

“What the...” Lily Potter’s eyes widened.

“Runic wards,” Ren said, projecting a wandless _Sonorus_ that carried his words to the back of the crowds. “Have, up until now, been used almost exclusively on objects.  Warders use spell-casting to protect the living when they’re out and about, and while certainly effective, the method does require constant, conscious awareness of one’s surroundings, the tremendous, occasion- proportionate expenditure of power, and of course, a functional wand.  The tri-layered sequence I just inscribed on your wrist is an example of the elaborations I’ve managed thus far on the research done in the field that I’ve dubbed bio-runics. The inscription will remain for six months – the approximate length of a Scottish winter and late spring – and will protect you against the associated damp and cold, not by stimulating your own metabolic system as pure spell-casting would do, but by keeping them out entirely. As the dungeons have runic sequences carved into the outer walls that prevent the cold and damp from seeping in – so do you now. Not carved,” he added hastily. “Inscribed. And it’ll fade eventually, like Polyjuice does.“

Lily’s eyes were wide as she looked down at the sigils, then up at her son.

“Is it blood magic?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Not exactly. It works through your blood, but not because of it. Basically, your blood carries the essence of the elements evoked in the sigils to every part of you through your circulatory system, and spreads the effects in a constantly flowing rotation.”

“That’s bloody _brilliant,_ ” she said in awe. 

“It’s impossible,” Professor Babbling said blankly.

“If it were impossible,” Ren said. “It wouldn’t work.”

“You used your wand.” Malfoy’s eyes were narrowed in consideration. “To seal the sigils.”

“I did,” Ren said. “Bio-wards are based on runes, but certain variations still require an animate, magical seal to bind them to the live target. A _neutral_ seal,” he emphasized. “No ties, blood or otherwise, are created between the donor and the recipient. “

“What else can you do?” he asked. “Besides induce warmth?”

“Quite a few things,” he said pleasantly.  “Undo a bio-rune that’s been placed by another, for one.”

There was an infinitesimal pause at that.

“New advances aren’t covered till tomorrow,” one of the goblins said querulously.  “We’re on a tight schedule here, Master Cartwright.” Malfoy ignored him, arrested.

“You have an International Mastery in DADA,” he said to the innocuous man standing before him. “Yes?”

“Mm.”

“I have made inquiries,” Malfoy said. He made sure he stood just close enough for his own voice to be powered by the _Sonorous_. “Very few, if any, people have heard of you. Your name is unknown on the American, much less the international, dueling circuit.”

“I was trained – and accredited – in circles that value discretion, Mr. Malfoy,” Ren said.  “You know of my cousin Dame Lady Augusta Longbottom’s non-Magical associates, of course?”

“Mm.”

“Those associates have associates. On all levels, in both the non-Magical and Magical society, across the world. They’re always on the look-out for raw talent, and when they spot it, they make sure it reaches its full potential, one way or the other, again as discreetly as the situation would seem to demand.”

“So why are you making a point of your talents now?’

“I’ve just turned thirty,” Ren said blandly. “It seemed the appropriate time.”

He turned to the door, waiting. Sure enough...

“And you’re the first in this field? There have been none before you?”

He turned back.

“I didn’t say that,” he said. “There have been a few who have explored the possibilities. Quietly.  One of your former locals, even.  He had a very warped idea of what you could do there. Primitive. Crude.  Vulgar, even. Wards Room is this way, ladies and gentlemen.”

This time, it was Severus Snape's voice that rang out.

“You are saying,” he said. “That the Dark Mark is a bio-rune?”

“A primitive one,” Ren said. “Unrefined. I would call it more of an experiment than an example. The curses involved, as is the tattoo, are peripheral: a mask for the sequences.  There are elements of other types of magics incorporated – charms and blood hexes, primarily - but none that can’t be untangled with a bit of effort and the help of an expert in the applied effects of the Dark Arts.”

Fudge’s jaw dropped. Hard. He darted a quick look at Malfoy.

“Tomorrow,” Ren said. “We're on that schedule, after all. I’d be happy to demonstrate, if you lot could come up with a volunteer.”

He led the way down toward the Wards Room.  Furious whispering broke out behind him. Again, Malfoy fell into step beside him.

“What of the linking effect?” he said. His voice was considerably quieter. “That ties one Death Eater to another, through the Mark?”

“Only works if You-Know-Who has a body himself,” Ren said. “If he ever made the attempt to return, he’d have to incorporate the flesh of a previously marked individual into the rituals in order to re-establish the link between him and his followers. Get rid of the Marks on all of the marked individuals while he’s gone, and he’s got nothing to rebind them with. He’d have to start the entire recruitment process all over again, and okay, he’s got lots of charisma to be working with and that past working history,  but then again, what’s that saying? Those who don’t learn from history find themselves bound to repeat it?”

“Popular rumor has it that he is dead,’ Malfoy said neutrally.  “Rather hard to come back from that, Master Cartwright.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” Ren said brightly. Immediately beside him, Fudge’s jaw tightened, or rather, quivered into a taut knot. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Snape poke his mother reprovingly as she snorted, his own lips twisting with wry mirth. “Such a pity about young Quirinius Quirrell, don’t you think?  Possession, wasn’t it?”

“You knew him?”

“We met once or twice over the years,” he said. “During his trav..” He nearly jumped out of his skin as a a miniscule flash of bright light zipped past, but old reflexes died hard, or not at all as the case might be, and his hand snapped up automatically. The tiny Patronus fluttered in his enclosing fingers. He opened them and laughed out loud, surprised and truly delighted.

“Isn’t that something,” he said, and called out - “Yours, I believe, Miss Rhodes?”

“It’s corporeal?” The tall girl pushed through. “PROFESSOR LUPIN! I DID IT!”

“Well _done_ , Miss Rhodes!” Remus said, smiling as he approached. “I do believe it is. My goodness, look at that!" The tiny, perfectly round bird hovered above his palm before dashing off and dissipating. “A snidget!”

“Brilliant!” the Quidditch-loving senior prefect pumped her fist. Ren laughed. He wasn’t the only one.

“Well done,” Fudge complimented her, not a little pompously. “A most auspicious start to the proceedings, I must say. What about you, Master Cartwright? Care to show us your Patronus?”

Ren could almost feel Sirius suck in his breath in anticipation. He’d tried to cast his Patronus several times since the first evening he’d failed at it after regenerating, and, frustrated, had finally gone to his fathers with it.

“Well of course you’re having problems,” Remus had said. “It’s got nothing to do with your new form, cub. Well, it does, but not like you’re thinking. Your old memories are fine for the job, it’s the corporal correlative that’s the issue.”

“Huh?”

“Ninety percent of Patronuses mimic the Animagus form of the caster,” his father had said patiently as he set the tea before him.  “You _know_ that. You’re worried that when you cast, the subject will be The Great UnNamed, there for everyone to see. So no matter the happy memory, the niggling worry behind it is preventing actualization.”

“Oh,” Ren said. “Right.” He put his head in his hands. “I’m an idiot.”

“No,” Sirius said kindly. “Just distracted.  Now that you’re aware, cast that warding box thingy and show us what you’ve got. Not you, Moony. Go fetch up biscuits or something.”

‘Woof,” Remus said, but had departed obligingly.  One warding box and happy memory later...

“Everything alright there?” Remus inquired, returning.

“Yeah,” Ren had said, still a bit dazed. “You’ll be happy to know that you’ve officially adopted a one in ten.”

“Excellent. I’m so glad. Alright there, Sirius?” he asked his lover. Said lover just lay on his back on the sofa, arms spread limply. He looked decidedly blissed.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Moonlight,” his fiancé said. “But if I ever go back to Azkaban... He’s my floo call.”

“That good, mm?”

“Ever seen a Dementor piss itself? Come along for the ride, and you’d be there for yet another first, I promise.”

“Aren’t you being maddeningly vague.”

“Be happy to,” Ren said pleasantly to Fudge. “There's a small problem there, though.”

“Oh?"

“It’s very big,” he said. “Mind if we point it out the window?” He didn't wait for the answer, just pointed at the stone wall of the hall, silently triggering the runes he’d placed on his midnight wanderings the night before.  The stones promptly turned translucent, revealing the huge expanse of land rolling down toward Black Lake.

“It's still there,” he reassured the astonished audience. “You can see out, but anyone outside can’t see in. Very handy in potential siege situations, and this _is_ a castle.” He went to the wall and pushed up a window, perched incongruously in the middle of the invisible stonework, and leaned out, aiming both wands high over the lake.

“Americans,” he heard someone mutter disdainfully, right before he hurled himself backwards against the opposing wall.  It nearly broke under the weight of the crowds hurling themselves back beside him. The two immense, life-sized Hungarian Horntails soared forth, reared up, and breathed, blasting pure white energy from horizon to shimmering horizon.before soaring off into the frigid, wintry blue.

“Dragons,” Seamus Finnegan breathed, quite rhetorically. “ _Two_ of them! _Blime_ y!”

“Two wands,” Ren said.  “I like dragons. “Specially the big scary ones.” He winked at Ron. He stared back. Oddest of all was the expression on Bill’s face. He was staring at Ren, caught half between patent disbelief and wild, desperate hope. For a long moment, no one said anything else, still stunned, then...

“Male and female,” a goblin adjudicator said loudly and harshly. It sounded almost accusing. “Your wand cores are mated!”

_Bugger._

“That they are,” Ren said flatly, and at Fudge’s nakedly greedy expression (and his wasn’t the only one)... “No. I don't need to be a Legilimens to know what some of you are thinking, and you can get it out of your heads right now, if only for your own safety. I may be a dual citizen, but insofar as this matter is concerned... These are American wands, and as such are not up for conscription, sale, trade, barter, or inspection. I can absolutely _guarantee_ that anyone trying to confiscate them for research purposes will find themselves facing the wrath of two fully aware and sentient specimens that believe that they are being separated from their offspring.”

The clamour was immediate and uproarious.

‘They think of you as their _child_?”

“Wait, _sentient_?”

“They chose me,” he said, his voice cutting through the roaring.  “Both of them. As a _pair_.  They’re mine, and I’m theirs. Together...” His mind cleared again, and a deep joint hissing purr sounded. “The three of us aren’t just a team. We’re a _family_.”

“They’re _wands_! Wands aren’t sentient!’

“They’re not wands,” Bill Weasley said, speaking for the first time from amid his surrounding shield of goblins. Ignored till now, as Ren had noted, his voice silenced everyone as if doused.“If they’re mated cores, and were aware enough to choose their wizard together... They’re not wands at all, not in anything but physical essence. They’re exactly what they ever were, just in a different form. Souls. Live souls, that likely didn’t pass before they donated their heartstrings for the cause.”

The silence that followed _that_ was absolute.

“May I ask,” Amelia Bones said quietly. “Master Cartwright... Where you purchased these wands?”

“I didn’t purchase them at all,” Ren said truthfully. Sirius had paid for the male, and Snape had given him the female.  “They found me.”

“And where were you when they found you?”

“I was at a train station. Someone gave me a pamphlet. Shoved it in my hand.  I went to put it in the garbage can, and they were there. Right on top. As soon as I touched them... “

He paused.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“I’d just lost my wife,” he said. “I was by myself in an in-between place.  And they found me there, and claimed me.”

“Do they communicate with you? Actively?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. Someone, he observed, knew her wandlore.

“No,” he said. “Emotions, but that’s all.”

“Emotions... What kind of emotions?”

“Emotions related to people. They’re excellent judges of characters, Horntails, and don’t tolerate fools gladly. I’ve learned to trust their instincts.”

“Can you give me an example?’

“Now?”

“Yes.” It was absolutely uncompromising.

_What the hell._

“They don’t like Albus Dumbledore,” he said coolly. “They think he’s buggier than a half-burnt sign on Broadway. “

“I’m ... sorry?”

 “Off his nut,” Sirius translated. 

“Thank you, Professor Black. When have you met him, Master Cartwright?’

“I popped by the DMLE to get their opinion of him,” Ren said. “Couple days after Hallowe’en. Check the log in sheets, I used my best handwriting in the book and everything.” He cocked his head. “He’s still there, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t suppose you had something to do with that?”

“Aw, see?” he said to Neville. “I told you he wouldn’t be content to just sit there for long, didn’t I? No charge for the upgrades,” he said to the Director of Magical Law Enforcement. “He was projecting very nasty emotions at me, and trying to see mine besides. For the record, I _really_ don’t like folks who go poking about my head without asking permission first. “

“You modified the wards on the holding cells at the DMLE?” Fudge said sharply. “Without a proper contract?”

“Not exactly,” Ren said. “But that’s day two stuff again. Wards Room?” He gestured hopefully. Amelia Bones eyed him narrowly, then nodded.

“Very well. I suppose further questions can wait. Do not think for one moment, though, that we are finished this discussion, Master Cartwright,” she said. “We are not."

“Course we’re not,” he said, resigned... He lifted the lid of his coffee cup as everyone began to walk again, and peered in. She reached over with her wand and tapped it. It refilled promptly. He looked at her, surprised.

“Hufflepuffs,” she said. “Master Cartwright... Never graduate. We pride ourselves on the fact.“

And they rounded the final corner, and before them was the Wards Room.

 

* * *

In the centre of the room was the shimmering blue model of the castle, eighteen feet high: fully formed and with layers upon layers of ley-lines.  Around it rose tiers of benches, very nearly to the ceiling and quite enough for everyone crowding the halls. Surprised and confused murmurs rose as that processed.  Ren glanced at Neil, puzzled. Then the distinctive crackle of another _Sonorus_ sounded, and Fudge's voice sounded throughout the corridors.

"Surprise, surprise!" he beamed. "We've managed, with the help of our new Headmaster, to make arrangements for all of you to watch the proceedings after all. Yes, yes, the students too. All of you, yes. No, don't worry about classes; those have been cancelled for the day. We'll have to take certain precautions of course, in terms of security, but we'll explain those once everyone is seated. In you go now. Yes, yes. In, in! Right up to the top, that's it!"

Everyone obliged quickly, confused yet, but obviously eager and excited... Ren glanced around from his position beside the door. All of his specifications had been met, he saw. In particular, the portrait of the bakery was gone. In its place was an enormous blank shimmering canvas that very nearly covered the wall. As the adjudicators  took their reserved spots and the last of the students trickled in, he nodded to Jessamyn Rhodes, tucked a multi-coloured biro behind each ear, and, unstrapping his Nimbus 2000 from his back, removed his fleece jacket. She  took it and slid it on as he handed it over, snuggling into it rather obviously (and with a rather obvious flirt of her eyelashes) and blowing him a kiss as she took his coffee mug and one of the last seats.  Ren rolled his eyes at her fondly before throwing a leg over the broomstick; it soared up and veered left as he nudged it deftly with his knees, flicking his wands with his fingers till they were of a suitable length.

“Lonny,” he called out. “Is Gryffindor Tower clear?”

“Yes, Master Cartwright.” Lonny popped in, quivering excitedly. Hermione looked as if she were about to faint with the thrill. “Everyone is being away, and we house-elves is guarding the stairs and all the entrances, and every way in and out! There is being not a spider or a book left inside.”

“Good job."  He tapped a ley-line. Awed gasps rang out as it separated neatly from the others, spinning around before the castle and stretching neatly from floor to ceiling... Once anchored, it split and reformed into dozens of interlocking groups that formed a model of tower itself. On the canvas behind it, an image formed: that of the inside of the Gryffindor common room. It was completely empty; not a stick of furniture, tapestry, pillow or dust bunny remained. Ren waved his wand. Everyone stared as the canvas scrolled through every room in the tower, all equally empty now.

“Where’s our stuff?” Dean Thomas said, slightly panicked. “What did you do with all of our _stuff_?”

“It’s safe,” Ren reassured him. “It’ll all be back before bedtime, just as it was. I had to clear everything out though, before I did... This. “ He nudged his broomstick with his knees, floated up to the very top of the ley-line, and splitting it open carefully, nudged something in the interior. There was a gigantic lurch, and the entire castle seemed to tilt to the left before righting itself again.The canvas was promptly rendered blue.

“What...”

“That,” Ren informed the adjudicators and his audience, “is what happens when you remove all the wards on a section of the castle all at once.“ No sooner had the words left his mouth then there was a violent wail, and the ghost of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington swooped in, clutching at his drooping, wild-eyed head.

“Catastrophe!” he wailed. “Horror! Calamity! Gryffindor Tower is _gone_! Gone, gone, _gone_! Rock and rubble, dust and ashes...”

“It’s okay, Nick,” Ren reassured him, projecting his voice as shouts of alarm rang out. “The ley-line’s still here, see? That means the magical skeleton is still there, and it’ll be at least forty eight hours before the main nexus decides that it’s been gone long enough for it to rationalize rerouting the power it was channeling there to other portions of Hogwarts.  I’ll have everything back together by tea-time.”

“ _You_ knocked down Gryffindor Tower?” the ghost sputtered.

“Well, I couldn’t knock down Ravenclaw, could I?”

“WHY NOT? “ That came, unsurprisingly, from the Gryffindor contingent. The Slytherins, unsurprisingly, were in near-convulsions of laughter.

“Because the base of the main ley line runs perpendicular to, and through, Slytherin’s,” Ren said matter-of-factly. “And Slytherin is built around the foundations of Hogwarts. If I knocked it out, Ravenclaw Tower, that is,  I’d be knocking out two Houses, not one, and I’d bring down the whole castle besides.  No way I could fix that by tea time, is there, and Gryffindor Tower is an entirely separate entity besides, built after all of the others, and thus contains cumulative elements of all of the wards that the four were developing in the process of constructing the other three.”

“A perfectly logical and sound explanation,” Snape drawled from the door. A veritable parade of huge trays floated on either side of him, filled with tiny smoking little shot glasses. They passed themselves around.

“What’s this?” Mike Donnelly, the nominal owner of Cleopatra the Kneazle asked, taking one and sniffing it.

“It is a security potion,” Snape told him. “The Headmaster and I brewed it together. It will allow you sit and watch the proceedings, but you will never be able to describe what you see done here today, or to think on it long enough to record yourself talking about it, or to write it down. If you try to put the relevant and related memories in a Pensieve they won’t take, and anyone trying to Leglimens the memories out of you will be bounced out. Hard.

Murmurs ran around the room at that.

"I've never heard of anything like that before," one of the Ravenclaws said dubiously, sniffing at his portion. "Are you sure it's safe?"

“Perfectly," the Headmaster assured him. "For the record, though, if you refuse to drink, or try to fake it, everyone here will know, very, very quickly.” He cast a quick _tempus_ charm. "Best to get it over with; it's not the most pleasant of concoctions. On three now, and for the record, it's got a ten second shelf life from the time I start. Past that, and it'll disappear, and you won't, as I said, enjoy the personal consequences of your hesitation. On my count... One... Two..."

Coughs and gagging filled the room. Past the count of ten, everyone looked around eagerly... More than one face fell as no one exploded.

"Ah well," Neil said comfortingly. "Maybe next time. Alright, Ren. It's your party." He settled down. "And don't forget what I told you, if there's so much as speck of dust out of place by sundown, I _will_ turn you over my knee."

"Yeah, yeah," Ren said. He flexed his fingers around his wands, and with a quick twist, bounced to a standing position on his broom, bracing his feet as if on an extremely thin, narrow surfboard.  "Alright then. If you'll all turn your attention to the board..." He nodded. Heads turned. The canvas switched scenes. Everyone stared, ogle-eyed. Neatly stacked, from the base of the south castle wall all the way down to the frigid shores of Black Lake, were gigantic rows of stone, piles of wood, and heaps upon heaps of glass windows.

"Gryffindor Tower, ladies and gents," he said. "Don't worry, kids. All your belongings are stowed inside the castle. Nothing's going to get lost, soaked or damaged, I promise." He soared up to the very top of the model tower, and began to separate ley-lines so quickly his wands actually smoked. "No, don't watch me, watch the painting. There'll be close ups there, and I'll explain as I go along."

"Do you _have_ to put the spiders back?" Ron Weasley's voice called plaintively. "Can't you just leave them out and call it an improvement?"

"Did you even _consider_ dismantling Hufflepuff?" one of the sixth-year Gryffindors demanded at very nearly the same moment. "Even for a _second_? You never said that knocking _it_ out would result in the castle coming down!"

"No," Ren agreed. "I didn't. And I didn't again. And no, it wouldn't. I just wasn't inclined."

"Why not?"

"Because we're nice," Emily Carpenter said complacently. "Believe it or not, some days it _is_ worth the conscious effort. And this... This is one of those days."

Every Hufflepuff in the room smirked simultaneously.

"It actually has more to do with the fact that the wards in Hufflepuff are layered horizontally," Ren said placatingly. "And those in Gryffindor are stacked vertically." He soared down to the floor and stepped off. "It means an extra hundred layers of sequences to the foundations at least, to be able to support the weight of all the sequences rising out of it." He pulled a biro from behind his ear and clicked. "Alright. Eyes on the screen now." The canvas split into two; one a whiteboard where the sigils he was working would be reflected for all to see, and the other a visual, again, of the south side of the castle. " First things first... We begin by defining the parameters of the remote node that acts as the focal, and focusing point, for the raw magic flowing through to the separate sections of the castle from the main nexus point under the room we're in now. For the youngest of you, and for those who haven't signed up for Runes as an optional, let me put it another way. The main nexus point acts as Hogwarts' magical core. It attracts magical power from all of the larger ley-lines running under and through all of Great Britain, much, for that matter, as all of us do. It's unfocused power though... Real, but raw again, as is the power that every Magical child has, and attracts, before he or she learns to channel and focus what's available to him or her through the use a wand. In order to make use of it all that power, then..."

He paused encouragingly. Hermione waved her hand wildly.

"You have to craft a wand!" she said excitedly. "And put it in the foundations of the tower!"

"Not quite." Ren smiled at her as he worked. "I have to craft a wand _as_ the foundation of the tower. When it's finished, it'll attract  power from the school's core, that's under us now, as I said. Can anyone guess what'll come after?"

Noses wrinkled all around. One of the NEWT runes students - a Ravenclaw again - sat up straight.

"You'll have to write the sequences that will allow you to point the wand," she called. "In any given direction! So you can aim the spells you cast through it!"

"Exactly. And how will I cast each of those spells?'

"You write them down," a Slytherin boy said from the back row. "As sequences again. Using runes as your language. And when you want to change a section, you go into the base and repoint the wand at the area you want to go over, and ..." He looked tentative. "Rewrite the lines?"

"You got it," he said, genuinely pleased. "Final question... Where would I inscribe these sequences? Physically?"

The students hummed, puzzled. He continued to work. Finally, of all people, little Susan Bones raised her hand. Ren nodded at her.

"In the walls of the ley-lines," she said. "Those blue lines there. Only they're not exactly solid, are they? They're made up of thousands and thousands and thousands of runes. All knitted together likes stitches in different patterns, that say different things. That define different things. Different schools of magics, single spells... When you did whatever you did at the top, straight off, to make Gryffindor Tower collapse... It didn't make the _runes_ collapse, but it made all the threads that _connect_ all the runes unravel from top to bottom. The individual spells are all still there,  that's why you can still see the lines, like you told Sir Nicholas - but now you have to anchor them all together again before they realize that they're not actually connected anymore." Her small, round face was screwed with concentration. "And the way you're going to do that is by putting the warding spells back in. The warding spells are the things that hold all the other spells -the runic sequences - together... Right? And if you can do it in time, in good time, before they realize they're not connected anymore... all the stones and stuff will just pop back into place, and it'll be like nothing happened to them at all."

She looked up. Ren was looking at her, a small smile on his face.

"That's exactly, exactly right," he said. "You're going to be a great witch one day, Susan Bones. No, an astonishing one. I look forward greatly to following your career." She flushed furiously. He flicked his fingers over the brim of his hat in a tiny salute.

"Alright," he said, turning back. "First things first, as I said. Let's build ourselves a wand...."


	9. !

I haven't deserted you all, I promise! Am in the middle of a huge move. Will be back this weekend!


	10. Of Restless Nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really part one of two. I split it so that it would flow more evenly. Next coming up tomorrow.

**Ren's Bathing Chamber**

**Hufflepuff's Sett**

**After Dinner**

  
  
Zacharias Smith was in disgrace, and Ren was in pain.

"Rancid, mouldy little turd," Sirius Black said disparagingly as he sprawled opposite his son in the huge, deep bath. He was completely naked, his modesty preserved only by a thick layer of lilac and rose bubbles and a family-sized silver serving basin of best English trifle. A glass of dark spiced wine sat at his elbow, and the remainder of the warmed bottle waited patiently alongside.  "And he calls himself a Hufflepuff? What happened to that famed sense of loyalty?"

"He's a hard worker anyway. He works very hard at being a pain in everyone's arse. And it's more that he can't call himself a Gryffindor." Ren reached for his own wine glass. "Or a Slytherin or a Ravenclaw. The Hat had to stick him somewhere, and the rest of the Houses would have strangled him before the first week was out if he'd been placed with any of them."

"You handled him very well, cub," Remus complimented him. He was perched behind Ren on the ledge of the tub - it really was more of a small pool - in a fluffy white towel, his long, strong legs dangling in the water as he kneaded the other man's shoulders, neck, arms and hands. Sirius shook his head in wonder as he watched them. Not only was the hair the same, he thought, but he fancied there was something there about the firm mouth too, and definitely, definitely something in the (very slight) relaxed slouch. Remus Lupin, of course, never slouched in public, and that was just as well. It might have been the steamy haze, never mind fatuous projection, but just at that moment, the two looked, if not like father and son, very definitely brothers.

"Only because I was being graded on it." Ren swallowed yet another mouthful of wine. "I was supposed to be demonstrating my abilities to protect the students, after all, not best methods and practices for stringing them up by the toenails."

"I'm sure the adjudicators gave you bonus points there," Sirius assured him. "I would have." He licked yet another enormous glob of trifle off the serving spoon contentedly. "Mm. This is brilliant."

"Considering the sheer amounts of alcohol in it, I'm not surprised. You're sure this isn't inappropriate?" He waved a vague hand about at their surroundings.

"Course not. Old family tradition, at least amongst the Purebloods. Bubbles, cognac, cigars, discussion of which of the other families you planned to pillage and disgrace next, if only on the political front... Wasn't it a thing where you come from?"

"No. I don't think so, but then I did marry into a family with seven kids. Bathtime was probably the only time any of them ever got to be alone past the certain age, and they were all chronically obsessed with locking charms." He winced and flinched as Remus hit a particularly dense knot. "Ow. Owowowow...Oooh." He sighed as a deep-warming charm eased through him. Inscribing runes in neat little inked lines looked easy enough, but there’d been that point two hours in when Smith (bless his leaking haemmoroidic little heart), despite being a Hufflepuff, had stirred restlessly in his seat when he’d insisted on thirty minutes of complete silence and stillness so that he could concentrate on a particularly sticky section.

“How hard can it be,” he’d said loudly. “You’re just writing things down!” Emily Carpenter (bless her heart, and wasn’t she becoming one of the reborn wizard's top ten favourite cross-dimensional anomalies) hadn’t just smacked him at that, but hit him round the mouth, and not with an open hand, either. The scuffle had nearly gotten them both kicked out, but Ren had needed a break, and beckoned Smith over.

“What,” the boy said sullenly, half pained and half obviously fearful of public wrath and humiliation. Ren had just boosted him onto the broom, and, one arm anchored neatly and securely about his waist, had shot up abruptly ten feet to the point where he’d been working. Smith yelped and staggered, but the arm had held him firm.

“Sticking charms,” Ren told him. “Okay, Zach. Can I call you Zach?”

“No,” Smith said rudely.

“Alrighty then,” Ren said. “Engorgio!” The ley-line swelled. Everyone peered at the interior on the screen. “Here. Have a biro. Weird name for a pen. We’ll just call it a pen. Don’t worry, you can’t hurt anything, I promise; this is just for demonstration purposes. I want you to take this pen and connect these two horizontal lines with a straight vertical one here, okay?” A little arrow pointed to the spot on the interior. “Just a little one, but it has to be perfectly straight. No zigs, no zags, no flourishes, just a straight line, no diverting; do not pass go, do not collect 200 Galleons.”

Smith cast him a disdainful look and obliged. He’d set tip to ley-line, and tried to move the pen. Nothing happened. He frowned and tried again. On the third try, he braced his feet, anchored his hand with a wrist, and threw his entire weight down. The tip of the biro, embedded firmly in the ley line, moved not so much as the girth of a fruitfly.

“What...” He looked up at the man steadying him, his expression not just confused, but openly furious. "What's going on? You charm it to make me look stupid or something?"

“No,” Ren said patiently, refraining from obvious comment. The derisive sniggers from every angle positively warmed his heart.  "I'm rebuilding an entire tower, see? That involves lifting stone. Tons of it. Tens of tons of it, Mr. Smith. It looks easy enough yes, but ... It’s not. It’s hard, heavy physical work, and it requires not just knowledge of theory, but past the point, extremely, extremely strong biceps. Did you not wonder why, of all of the three Masteries that I’ve worked toward, I’ve saved Warding for last?”

“Um. No?”

“Because working toward a Grandmastery in Dueling and learning to dodge Dark curses on the highest level have been the things that have given me the body strength and dexterity necessary to finally make a go at things today.” He took the biro from him gently, the broom sinking down to the floor again. “Up you go; back to your seat.  Thank you for your help, and if I could have that last twenty minutes of quiet now, folks, I’d be really grateful. The blocks I’m working with now are some of the biggest and heaviest of the lot, and they could put a heck of a lot of really, really big holes in your back yard if I drop any. Emily, would you mind scooting around and sitting next to Ava there? I think you’ll get a much better view of this next part. Awesome.”

He’d set his feet on the broom again and shot back up. Twenty rather intense, sweaty and red-faced minutes later, the supporting stonework of Gryffindor Tower was locked firmly in place. Ren  sank into a sitting position on the broom, wiping his face with the hem of his t-shirt.  Several of the students at the appropriate angle nearly fell off the stands as they leaned in to get a glimpse of his abs.

“Okay,” he said when he'd recovered his breath. “Breaktime. Lonny?”

“Yes, Master Ren?” Lonny popped in, eyes round. “Is Master Ren alright?”

“Master Ren needs a sandwich and a very, very large cup of coffee. Pile on the sugar. In the coffee, not the sandwich. AHHHH!" He gasped, back snapping suddenly as the muscles in his shoulders seized. Neil had been at his side immediately, holding him up as he dug his thumbs in and worked out the spasms.

"Shh," he said. His voice was deep and soothing. "Hardest part's over now. You're doing brilliantly. There. In... Out..."

"Is he going to be alright to go on?" Fudge said, alarmed, half-rising from his seat. Behind him, and slightly to the right, and even through his pain, Ren noticed Lucius Malfoy rolling his eyes most expressively at that. Maybe it was because the new Headmaster had been designated a Slytherin, he mused, and, in a way, that made his grandson a snake-by-proxy, but the man seemed almost sympathetic. Ren caught his eye and blinked too, at the impassive lowered eyelid on Malfoy's part... It could have been another blink, but really, it came across decidedly more as shared and mutual disdain for fools.

That, or an obvious ploy to cultivate, American or not, a particularly formidable ally. Bellatrix had always been a mitigating factor in Voldemort's tolerance of the Malfoys, and between her death and the disappearance of the diary from Malfoy Manor (Ren hadn't bothered replacing it with a dummy), there was really nothing to be surprised at there. Lucius and Narcissa had to know that the family goose was well and truly cooked should a second war start warming, and the Master of the House was on the lookout for prospective protective muscle.

"Of course he is," the Headmaster said. It sounded more than a bit edgy. The adjudicators looked supremely unconcerned, jotting notes and murmuring to each other. One or two of the goblins rose to their feet and came to prod at the ley-lines. Again, far from looking concerned, they just looked mightily impressed.  "He just needs a few minutes. And I think we could all use a snack after that. Bring it on, Lonny." He perched beside him on the broom, arm around him firmly. Ren, no matter the interpretation of the familial facade, and just at that moment, didn’t give a shit on appearances. He just leaned into the broad shoulder and the thick chest and breathed through the renewed spasms. It could have been his imagination again, he thought, but the expression on Malfoy Senior's face as his eyes rested on the two of them together was almost...

Approving.

“Are you gonna be okay?” the nominal grandfather said, near inaudibly as the students sitting closest fidgeted anxiously. "The judges don't look too bothered, but..."

“They're not. It’s International level,” Ren said, raising his voice just enough for the front row to hear and pass on. “It's supposed to  be painful, on all levels.” He blinked as before him, Eulalia Shelley appeared, holding out a small pair of pills and a bright colorful tube. “What’s this?’

“Muscle relaxants,” she informed him. “And an anti-inflammatory smoothing cream.“

“That’s really nice of you, Professor Shelley, but I’m not allowed enhancing potions at this level.”

“They’re not enhancing potions. They’re not potions at all. They’re strictly Muggle medicine, and there’s absolutely nothing in the rule book or your contract that says you can’t take them. Sev and I both looked. “

He glanced at the adjudicators. They conferred briefly, obviously for show, then nodded. Ren swallowed the pills dry as, her back to them, his mother smirked grimly at him. “Inbred idiots,” she mouthed, and though her eyes didn’t roll, they might as well have... The corners of his lips actually quirked at her.

“Thank you,” he said. “I really appreciate it.” She said nothing more, only reseated herself, accepting a bacon butty from the plates being passed around now. By the time Ren finished wolfing his own plate of sandwiches and the coffee, and made a trip to the side loo, the pills were making a real difference.  The cream that Neil – Neville, today he was Neville again - had worked into his shoulders and back after he’d followed him there, his strong hands smoothing the muscles again, had made even more.

“You going to be okay, mate?” he’d asked again, a third time.

“Yeah,” Ren said. “The worst of the heavy lifting’s done now.”

“I’ll come by at about eleven,” he said. “With a couple of my specials. And don’t argue with me on the legalities; they broke the rules first, after all. These tests are supposed to be spread over three weeks, not three days, just so you do have time to recover between. That damned underwater ruin they’ve planned to have you shore up tomorrow would leave an entire team of non-Internationals crippled up for a month after; all that shifting sand and water, all while dealing with all of the giant squid’s mutant Egyptian relations?”

"Here you are, Cartwright." Snape strode into the bathroom, holding a rack of six vials. Sirius yelped.

"Hullo! Family moment?"

"I am," the Potions Master said acidly. "Dating his _mother_. That ship has, as they say, sailed."

"Unless you're thinking on marrying her and becoming the third daddy in this menage, that doesn't count."

"Aaaand... Topic change. It's okay, Sirius." Ren turned slightly and took the vials. "Thanks, Professor." He gulped the potions one after another, only examining the labels once he'd downed the lot. "What are they?"

"You're asking me after you drink them?"

"You're a git, and my mum is not up for discussion as I've said, but we're past that much, anyway."

"Muscle relaxant," he was informed. "Anti-inflammatory, muscle-tissue repair accelerant, spasm prevention, a gut soother to reduce the likelihood of the development of an ulcer after the truly inadvisable amounts of coffee you drank today, and a headache potion to alleviate the symptoms of one Zacharias Smith."

"To be fair," Ren said. "He only said what a probable full half of the students were thinking."

"Yes, but he said it out loud," Sirius said. He burped trifle. Snape eyed him in revulsion.

"I know you do not want to hear it," he said to Ren. "But your mother is very proud of you."

"Is that why you're really here? To pass on the message?"

"Did you know that there are times," Snape said testily. "And never mind the literal decades' worth of abjectly repulsive little morons that Fate deemed my chronic supervisory lot both while alive and dead, that you, and you alone, Potter, are responsible for my never-once-mitigated profound relief  that I never had a child of my own?"

"I've suspected, yeah." Ren yelped as Remus pressed a hard thumb in a pressure point on his neck. Two seconds later, he was slumping and moaning. "Oh my God, that's good. If you weren't my dad now, Remus, I'd be heading straight back to the Room of Requirement to demand a sex change so that I could bear your childre... OWWWWWWWW!"

"Do they have spells or potions for that?" Sirius inquired with interest as he settled back in the water. "In your world?"

"None that are remotely  legal or healthy on any level. It's one thing to alter the appearance; even Non-Magicals have that down, but in terms of actual reproduction... There are always, always side effects."

"Polyjuice? I've heard rumours that that's how the first Metamorphmagus was born."

"It is not," Snape said. "It is, however, how several very well known case studies on certain very bizarre and unpleasant mental and physical birth defects were born."  
  
"And that explains you, doesn't it?"

"Oh, shut up. Both of you." Ren leaned his head back as Remus left off his aching muscles and reached for the pitcher, pouring warmed water through his hair. "Not that I'm complaining, Moony, but you really don't have to do that."

"Shh," Remus said fondly. "It's bringing back memories. Do you remember the battles Jamie and Lils used to have with him over his hair, Padfoot?"

"Yeah," Sirius said. "They didn't just invite us over three times a week to make sure we ate properly or to supply us with leftovers, it was the only way to ensure you got clean, pup, without someone drowning or losing an eye."

"It was the only way to ensure that his _counterpart_ was clean," Snape corrected. Remus didn't look irritated very often, but he did at that.

"You've delivered your potions," he said. "And the message from Lily. Unless you have something more to say, Severus, on your own behalf perhaps - something along the lines of 'Well done; you were absolutely spectacular today'  - the door's behind you."

"Runes and wards are not my area of expertise," the Potions Master conceded. "But as Gryffindor Tower is intact once more, with everything in proper order, with no leftover bits to deal with, and to the adjudicators' apparent satisfaction... I can only surmise that your performance was adequate."

" _Adequate?_ You great, greasy..."

"Thank you, Professor," Ren cut in. "That means a lot. Tell her not to hex Smith, however tempting it might be. He was born that way, and can't really help himself."

"You are generous," Snape said dryly. "Were he in Slytherin, he would have suffered far more than Miss Carpenter's slap."

"It wasn't a slap," Remus said. "It was an uppercut. A very effective one too. I haven't heard bone crunch like that since sixth year."

"What happened in sixth year?" Ren asked curiously - and then he remembered and nearly bit his tongue in two.

There was a pause.

"Erhm," Sirius said delicately. "Well. Far be it from me - us - to speak ill of the dead, or of your ... your counterpart's dad, but... He could be a great pillock. And sometimes he could be more than a pillock. Sometimes he could be downright mentally defective."

"Uh?"

"There was an incident, " he said. "It might not have happened in your world, but..."

"It did," Snape said. "If we are talking on the Whomping Willow and a certain full moon." He crossed his arms. "Are you saying, Black, that James, or rather Jamie Potter, was responsible for Lupin's betrayal here?"

"What?" Ren sat up.

"It wasn't a betrayal, exactly," Sirius began, and at Remus's tight-lipped Look, backtracked hastily. "Okay. Okay. It was. One that he paid for. I may actually have cornered him after on Remy's behalf and put a few of the special hexes my mum taught me in practice just to pay him back. He learned his lesson anyway, believe me. Wait." He sat up splashily in turn. "You're saying it wasn't Jamie who did it in your world? Who, then? Pete again?"

"No," Snape said, not without a certain dour relish. "It was you."

"His _counterpart_ ," Ren corrected. Sirius stared, aghast.

"What? I didn't! He didn't! Never! Never in a million years, not in any world! He... I couldn't, Moony and I are _mated_! Since fifth year, it's physically and mentally _impossible_ , it..." He stopped abruptly.

"I'm guessing that your counterpart and Beta Moony -" Ren used the phrase deliberately... "Weren't mated then. There. Not officially, anyway, Sirius. And he did marry Dora, remember?"

"I don't care!"  He knocked the trifle bowl aside, clambering up on his knees and splashing over to Remus through the pool, in floods of tears. "I don't care, I don't..." Remus maneuvered out from behind Ren and came to meet him, holding him tight, regardless of towel, as he wept rackingly. "I'd never, I'd never, I'd never, he's lying, he's _lying_ , Moony, I'd _never_!"

"I know, Siri." Remus wrapped him up. "I know you wouldn't. I don't think he's lying though. I know he's not. Whoever your counterpart is...  Was... He's not _you_."

"Which hexes did you use on him?" Snape inquired. "Out of curiosity?"

"All of them," Remus said shortly. "Dumbledore wouldn't defend me, so my mate did. Jamie was in the hospital - St. Mungo's, not the infirmary - for three months after. Nothing fatal, but he wished there was for awhile there, I'm sure."

"And did my own counterpart appreciate the gesture?"

"No. He was a git too. He improved a bit after, but only till we forgave Jamie."

"Why did you forgive him?'

"Because we loved him. He was a great pillock more often than not, and he never had a chance to grow out of it, but we did love him. He was, in spite of himself... Eminently lovable." He summoned another towel and wrapped Sirius up as he boosted him. "I'm sorry, cub. May we use your floo?"

"Course," Ren said, still shocked. He watched as they left, Sirius still crying wretchedly. He turned fiercely on Snape. "What the _hell_?'

"Professor McGonagall told me," he said. "That insofar as the particular incident was concerned, he was not the guilty party here. My counterpart may have been an unforgiving wretch, Potter, and I may have claimed that title myself for most of my own life, but that man you call your father now has never been guilty of anything but being a prat to anyone. He never betrayed friend or enemy; he never attempted to murder me... He is, in fact, however annoying, a quintessentially honourable man. I thought you should know."

"You couldn't have told me in private? He's _broken_! And you just broke him more! Do you know what kind of nightmares he's going to have now, on top of the versions he already has?"

Snape just sat on the edge of the bath. He seemed torn for a moment... Then thinned his lips in decision.

"Do you have any idea how remarkable it is, Potter," he said. "That he survived nine years in Azkaban away from his bonded mate? That they survived apart from each other? That takes more than strength of mind, or stubbornness, or any grim assurance of innocence. That takes _character_. The Sirius Black we both knew... He was many things - strong-minded, stubborn, assured... But he was not famed for his character, any more than any of the Blacks were. _He was a dog who betrayed his pack._ Such a dog can be forgiven and welcomed back... But is ever seen as morally suspect and as one to be watched. If Lily..." he paused.

"If Lily and James," he said in controlled tones. "My Lily, and her James... had truly believed our version of Black an honorable, trustworthy man... They never would have switched Secret Keepers. If Lils and Jamie - the ones who lived here - had ever truly understood that they had such a man as a friend here, and had not by habit projected their own weak tendencies onto him... They would never have switched Secret Keepers."

"What do _you_ know of them?'

Snape tapped his head. "My counterpart and I," he said. "We have a connection yet. Like your Horntails, he transmits emotions on occasion. He loved his Lils, yes - but from what I gather... She could be cruel. Disdainful. Autocratic. She was a Mudblood" - he used the word deliberately - "who was very nearly sorted into Slytherin, Potter, for all of the worst reasons. From what I've gathered, she would have been very, very successful there."

Ren stared at him.

"But my mum's not like that at all," he said.

"No," he agreed. "She is not. She is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but on the whole... She is no more like her counterpart than Black is like his."

"But they matched! For the ritual!"

"No," Snape said. "They did not. I take it you have not examined the associated memories that you removed and put in the Pensieve after Longbottom returned them?"

"Erhm. No?"

"You and Longbottom matched your counterparts," he said. "I matched mine. Well," he qualified. "Closely enough. I will not say that we are equally volatile; I simply learned to control myself better. That, however, is nurture, not nature, and can be accommodated for. Your mother and her counterpart, however... They both died for you. The difference between them is that your mother died for you because she loved you. Everything she did, all of the rituals that she performed... They worked toward, and as a reflection of, that one fact. Young Harry's mother died for him because she loved him - and because she enjoyed the thought of a jumped-up Mudblood beating Voldemort at his own Dark game."

Ren rubbed his bare arms.

"Minerva hated her," he said. "Lils I mean. And she said Mum hexed her. Or tried to."

"They made assumptions on each other," he said. "And each others' motives. Your mother was hurt by her hostility. And this Minerva... She might not have thrown the first hex, or any hex at all... But that does not mean she was not offensive in the extreme."

"She deserved it. She left me," he said sullenly. "With the _Dursleys_. And she _knew_."

"Oh for..." Snape threw up his arms in exasperation. "I'm going to ask you a question, you moron, and I want an answer. Why did you stay?"

"Uh?"

"You didn't have to stay with them. You are a _wizard_. A very nearly hundred forty year-old wizard: one who is stupidly, stupidly adept with glamours and wards, who thought merely that he had gone back in time, and who spent, after the apparent realization, inordinate amounts of effort rearranging the particulars of his future till the hour came to come to Hogwarts. You could have adjusted the wards your first hour back so that neither Dumbledore nor anyone else ever imagined you left, spent another month or two adjusting the memories and records of those with whom you interacted with over the years so that they believed that you were still interacting with them, arranged for Lupin's cure and Black's release just as you did, and then..." He waved a hand. "Gone off in disguise and lived the life fantastic, only returning in the days before your letter came, if you were truly that determined to relive your fantasy life as a melodramatic adolescent hero, to take up your in-house position. It would have made sense. It would have been the reasonable thing to do. The _logical_ thing to do. The thing, frankly, that, when we were all planning this.... That we anticipated you doing.  So... Why did you not do it?"

Ren gawked at him. Opened his mouth... And closed it again.

"I don't know," he admitted. "It never even occurred to me. I thought... I just thought I had to do it all over again, that... That that's the way it had to be. Fixing bad things that happen to other people... To Remus and Sirius... That's one thing. That's what I do. Fix things for other people. But..."

Snape reached out to flick his sodden brown hair.

"But you have never been good at fixing things for yourself," he finished. "Or fixing yourself. You had, in fact, to request a complete change in identity - in your very being - before even beginning to process the fact that it was feasible... and permitted.   I do feel wretchedly sorry for Miss Applebee. You will very certainly make her life miserable in any incarnation, professionally speaking, never mind the soothing fortune she'll make from it."

"What's all this got to to with Mum?"

"You do come by your 'saving people thing' honestly. But she never knew you. She gave birth to you, she loved you, and she died. She died physically shielding you when you were fifteen months old - and never got to see you grow up. Do you realize, Potter, that this is the first day... The first day, since the day she last held you on the day she died... That you have deliberately physically touched her? That she got to touch her son? She is _used_ to not being able to touch you. She is used to watching and watching and not being able to _affect_ anything. You can watch, sometimes, from the After. and she was helped along during the preparations; for thirty years she watched you every moment of every day... But she could not touch you. Could not affect you. The possibility," he emphasized. "Never even _occurred_ to her."

"How could she come through?" Ren asked, grasping at that in his confusion.  "If her counterpart wasn't a match?"

"We improvised," Snape said. "They matched physically. Perfectly. Not all analogs do. It's fairly rare, actually. As for the psyche, the psychological, and the manner and motivations behind her life and death... We found another, and with a great deal of creative arithmancy... Made them match."

"Regulus Black."

"Yes. He is not the man his brother seems to assume he was. In the end... He wanted to defeat the Dark Lord, yes, but it was not his primary motivation.  At the crucial moment, as was the case all along for your mother, he died to save someone he loved."

"And Little Harry's mother... Didn't?"

"She did, but in her case... I believe it was far more of a case of equal priority, and yes, the grudge that accompanied her wounded personal pride."

"I think you may have missed the mark," Ren said dubiously. "Or the right door, anyway, as a result. Things... Certain things here are not remotely the same, historically speaking, as they were at home. Really important things."

"There was room for a certain margin of error," was all Snape said as he rose. "However things have fallen out now... This is where we are now."

"What do you think made the difference in Sirius?" Ren asked suddenly. "Biology, upbringing, what?'

Snape turned to regard him.

"In our world," he said. "Before fifth year... Black was a spoilt, arrogant brat with, from the moment of his birth, no sense of true pack. A dog without a pack is a feral waiting to happen. Lupin never claimed him. Never loved him. They may or may not have..." He flicked his fingers. "Though I doubt that too. He was always rather fixated on your father. Here though...He was loved. Was claimed. It grounded him. Kept him sane, in his darkest hours, if barely. He is sane now. Broken yes, but still sane. Your godfather, Potter... Was never sane. Not past our sixth year. The  Marauders took him back, but he knew what he had done. He knew what he was. Oh, they were..." his lips twisted in a sneer. "Kind to him... They forgave him... But that was as far as it went. They trusted Pettigrew over him, not just with their lives, but with your life."

"But he didn't betray them!'

"No," he conceded. "He didn't. Given that... Where are the Longbottoms hiding?'

Ren said nothing. Snape nodded.

"One cannot accidentally give up information on Fidelius," he said. "The enchantments there, as you know, are so profound that even the correct information, elicited from the truly unwilling and faithful soul under torture, will not permit the interloper entry. The information must be freely given, on all levels."

"I know that."

"So did your godfather."

"So what are you getting at here?"

Snape sighed impatiently.

"It was a test," he said. "He suggested Pettigrew as a test. He wished them to say 'no, Padfoot, don't be silly; we know you'd die first before betraying us. We know that there is no power on this earth that could force you to betray us again.' If they had internalized that, and kept him on, he might have died years earlier, but they would still be alive. But.... They did not internalize it. On the day Pettigrew killed those Muggles and your godfather was arrested for it, and he said "I did it, I killed them'... He was not referring to the recent event as the causal event. He was referring back to sixth year, when he did, in fact, turn his back on his family, and lost their trust for all time."

"Maybe he just overestimated the risk that they were willing to take to protect me?"

" _Pettigrew_ , Potter!"

"Cartwright," Ren snapped. "It's _Cartwright_. Internalize _that_ , and get out while you're at it. I have things to do."

"Brat," Severus Snape said, but it was without his usual asperity, and he swept out. Ren boosted himself up and stared after him. After a moment, he Summoned a towel and began to dry himself off. His back felt considerably better after the soak and the massage, but now his mind was buzzing and agitated.

_I need a walk._

He tossed the towel aside and went to his bedroom.  There, he dug among the folded piles and racks of Muggle clothing in his closet (Cousin Augusta would never say so, but Ren had gotten the distinct impression as they shopped that they were of much the same mind on the essential foppishness of Wizarding styles) and pulled out fresh briefs and socks, clean trousers, a black jumper, and, from the hangers, an extremely nice leather bomber jacket that needed absolutely no magic to enhance his rejuvenated not-remotely boyish physique.  He tugged on a plain dark red wool cap and scarf. It didn't even occur to him to ask himself where he was going. He just cracked out on the spot, and waited for the world to reform around him.


	11. In One-Night Cheap Hotels

**Diagon Alley**

Diagon Alley was  ridiculously crowded for a November evening: a soggy, brilliant ribbon that twisted and shuffled about on the cold grey wind.  Ren ducked and dodged amongst the crowds, reveling in the fact that, despite his Muggle clothes and even after weeks of witnessing his face plastered on every paper and news report across Great Britain, no one seemed inclined to give him a second glance.

He had no particular destination in mind, but soon realized that Snape's enhancement potions were rendering his copious dinner entirely moot. A quick glance at the lines outside the Leaky Cauldron confirmed that he'd have no luck there. Instead, he decided to take advantage of one of  the outdoor market's best-kept secrets. He ducked into Knockturn Alley, took a quick left behind Borgin and Burke's, and came out before an absolutely filthy and utterly anonymous door tucked behind a dumpster. He knocked three times. The door opened slightly, and a bleary, reddened eye peered out.

"Reservation?"

"Recommendation."

 The door creaked open. Ren pulled off his cap. The woman standing there was perhaps sixty: shabby, but relatively clean, at least in comparison to her door... Her would-be customer waited patiently as she looked him up and down in a rather rude and obvious manner. Her gaze didn't linger on his scar or barbell for more than a moment, and she said nothing - her pupils didn't widen so much as a hair's width - but there was no doubt in Ren's mind that here was one person, at least, who was fully aware of who he was. As he'd always been in his own world, he wasn't so much offended or put off by her demeanor as professionally impressed.  He'd known trained Aurors who couldn't maintain that kind of re-directed poker face...If she hadn't been a Squib, Ren thought,  she could have run his department. Then again, it was probably for the best.  As was the case with Frankie Longbottom, he wasn't altogether sure that the world would have survived the fallout of the fully Magical version.

"Guess we can fit you in," she conceded. He stepped inside. The premises were actually an adapted flat, and the dimly lit front room was utterly empty of customers.

"We got one dish per night. Galleon-ten flat. Your recommendation tell you that too?"

"Bring it on."

She  disappeared into the kitchen. Ren seated himself one of four small, dingy tables and unzipped his jacket. Less than five minutes later, an enormous platter of exquisitely flaky, almost delicate beer-battered haddock, lemon slices and homemade tartar sauce  was placed before him, along with a mountain of fresh green peas,  a stack of hand-cut chips so tender they practically melted in his mouth, and a huge tankard of dark, mellow beer. He ate and drank with complete ungraciousness, taking less than fifteen minutes to plow through the lot. The woman - her name was Sadie Borgin, and she was the not-quite-shunned-if-not-remotely-acknowledged niece of the man around the corner  -  looked most approving.

"Pie?" she inquired.

"Yes,' he said. A double-deep slice of blueberry tart later, he burped raucously and slapped two galleons on the table.

"Worth every knut,' he said, and slid off the chair. "I'll be back."

"Do up my wards proper-like your next visit and you can eat free twice  a week for a year," she offered. He zipped up his jacket.

"I'll be in next Monday," he said. "Treacle tart, and you keep the fact that I've been here to yourself."

"Monday's coconut cream."

"Not if you want those wards, it's not."

"I got regulars who depend on me, you know?"

"You make me treacle tart, you won't ever have to worry about _ir_ regulars."

"Can't them house-elves up the school cook?"

"Not like you. Too much magic there. It affects the subtler flavours."

The Squib before him preened. It only lasted a moment though, before those reddened eyes narrowed shrewdly.

"Word's out you invented some fancy new magic that keeps the cold out the whole winter," she said. "I'll make you a tart for _that_ , I would. Nights are damp, and I'm not as young as I used to be."

"Word gets out fast,' he said ironically. "Wrap me up a couple to go -" - he nodded to his polished pie plate - "whole ones, not just slices - and we'll call it even."

She hesitated. Ren waited. Squibs were not treated well on the Alley, no matter their talent or their notorious relatives.  He'd developed a pronounced fondness for Sadie's cooking, though, the summer after Hogwarts burned in his own world - one of the warders on the repair team who'd taught him his trade had introduced them - and was well aware that, despite her regulars'  generous patronage, she was never quite able to make ends meet. As things were, she was  barely able to afford to keep a roof over her head and to buy the ingredients necessary to make her one-dish-a-night... Her uncle's charity, Ren knew, didn't extend any further than the range of the Muggle dust mop she used to clean his premises every night after her own day was finished. Certain magics didn't interact well with certain of the magics emanating from the man's regular inventory, and he and his partner were far too cheap to buy a house-elf when there was a perfectly good indigent relative on hand to do their dirty work.

Needless to say, such disdain did not inspire any kind of familial loyalty. Sadie Borgin not only made _the_ best treacle tart that Harry Potter had ever eaten in all of his fourteen decades of life (not excluding Frankie Longbottom's, though his steak-and-kidney edged hers out by _justthatmuch_ ) but her counterpart had also been one of Head Auror Potter's handiest and most valued private informants. Ren Cartwright saw no good reason to give over the possibility of a similar and mutually profitable relationship in this new world simply because he worked for himself now rather than the Ministry, or because he had brown eyes and brown hair rather than green and black.

"If I give you two,' she said reluctantly. "I won't have enough for my other customers. Dessert comes with the meals."

"Two slices then," he said, and reached into his pocket. "Right hand, please."

She held it out. He inscribed carefully, adding an extra sigil to prevent inflammation. She flexed her fingers in wonder.

"That's worth a lot more than pie," she said. "Why?"

"I might need a favour sometime," he said. "Nothing illegal, just the name of a potential contact or two who can expedite certain  things."

"You  looking for something in particular?"

"Not yet. And like I said, it won't be illegal. I just hate waiting in line. For anything."

She nodded and disappeared. A moment later she reappeared, bearing a recycled Muggle shopping bag. Ren tucked it into the Muggle backpack he was carrying and put another two galleons on the table.

"So your regulars don't whine over the coconut cream," he said. "I don't need anyone asking questions on why you're changing up your routines any more than you do."

"You going to send Fudge packing?"

"Um. What?"

"Heard that you might be making a run for politics."

"No," he said. "No, I can't say I intend to do that." He turned to the door and turned back. "You ever serve anyone here named MacNair? Walden MacNair?'

She looked cautious.

"He comes in now and again," she said. "Nothing like on a schedule."

"If he ever works one up," Ren said. "A schedule, that is... Let me know. We have a bit of mutual unresolved business, though he doesn't know it yet, and when it comes down to it, I promise it won't be on your premises."

She watched him turn.

"He's at Satin's," she said. "First Monday night of every month. Comes in the left side entrance. Leaves the same way."

He placed a five galleon piece on the table. It disappeared as if by magic.

"How do you know you can trust me?" she asked.

"You're trusting _me_ , aren't you? Or will be? Those who set the wards hold the keys," Ren said. "Monday. I'll be in after closing. He come in alone?"

"It's a brothel. If he had regular company, he wouldn't be a regular, would he?"

"One would think," he agreed. "Take care now."

He ducked out, glancing around once the door had closed, casting a quick hover charm on his shoes, and levitating so that he could reach the top ledge. He had to _Scourgify_ the grime off before he could inscribe the temporary protective runes there, and once he'd charmed the grime back into place, landed lightly back on his feet and  made his way around the dumpster and  back onto the main thoroughfare of Diagon Alley. The pie weighed heavily in the backpack. He had not asked for it on a whim, nor as a potential midnight snack.

_Won't do him any good just sitting in the bag._

Ren made his way down the street toward the Owl Post Office.

“Yuh,” the barely-legal counter-wizard said, blowing a series of Drooble’s best bubbles in best self-admiring style.

“I have an address,” Ren said. “Not sure where it is: Bolingbroke Court's all they told me, somewhere here in London, and I was told the apparition point is behind a floristry?’

“One mo’.” He popped his gum, coughing on an inhaled bubble, and hauled out a huge book tapping the cover with his wand. “Bolin’broke Court, Lunnin!”

The pages flipped obligingly. The entry glowed.

“Ere we go. ’At’s it, yuh.  Cammentun: clo’st stop Ahmed’s Flor'st’y  end of Inverness. Two-n’arf blocks down crost n'on yer left as you come out front.  Blank's galleon-three. Walkin’ map? Harf-sickle per!”

“No,” Ren said, after recovering the considerable energy it took to decipher all that. “I’ll find it.” He took the blank – a small card, magically attuned to the unfamiliar location and designed to carry a witch or wizard safely through their first time apparating in -  and handed him one Galleon and three sickles in return. “Thanks.”

“Yuh,” he said again. “Seeyuh.”

He ducked out, and was just about to head to the public apparition yard behind Florean’s, when one more shop caught his eye. He diverted and ducked in, striding up to the counter.

“Evening,” the saleswitch at Flourish and Blotts greeted him pleasantly. “You look like a man on a mission. Can I point you somewhere in particular?"

“History and biographies. The Masters' selections.”

“Up to your right, three aisles down.” She nodded to the staircase. Fifteen minutes later her odd customer returned, toting a dozen volumes of varying size. The saleswitch examined his choices with interest as she rang them up. 

“Not exactly light reading, these," she observed. "Can I recommend you a couple of more interpretive versions to balance them?”

“Not just now, thanks. Can you have these delivered to Hogwarts, please? “

“Of course. Name?”

“Just send them care of Sirius Black.”

“That’ll be sixty-two galleons, twelve sickles.”

Ren handed her his Gringotts’ auto-deduct card. The saleswitch tapped it, then handed it back. Less than five minutes later, he was in the courtyard behind Florean's, and less than thirty seconds after that, the backside of Ahmed’s Floristry was appearing before his eyes.

**259 Bolingbroke Court**

**Camden Town**

**North-West London**

259 Bolingbroke Court was a squat, shabby drunk of a house, forced by obvious and dire circumstance to whore itself out as two uneasily separated flats. The adverts had probably pitched its garden and its easy proximity to the Tube and the shops as selling points, but London in November was not an aesthetic selling point in and of itself, and the garden wasn’t inclined to live up to its billing in any case. Set to the side of the building, it was more of a wide, fenced alley fronted by a wrought-iron gate that lolled half-off its hinge... Behind the gate were no neatly done-over winter beds or paving stones, but an overflowing rubbish bin and a slurried caking of trodden snow  quite befouled by canine and feline transients.

The shops were alright though, Ren thought, or at least plentiful. There were bars and pubs galore, any number of slapped-up take-aways hovering around and on the street corners, and a large grocery and its associated fruit-and-veg stands half a block down. There was a chemist’s,  a couple of branches of not-terribly-hopeful-looking banks, several brand name clothing outlets, a fanciful craft store or two, and, directly across the street from Ren's target destination, a second-hand bookshop that smelled as if it specialized rather more in the sale of recreational Muggle herbs over lost first editions. That last, he thought, was probably more of a selling point with most of the neighbourhood residents than anything else... Certainly it would prove a definite consolation as they sought to convince themselves that the local landlords were renting them out  ‘really nice flats.’

Then again, considering Charlie's developing addiction to bad Muggle fiction, the immediate proximity to cheap books were probably all he'd probably needed to sign on.

Ren shifted a bit, hesitating. The invitation, such as it was, had been for Sunday, but after the observations he’d made on Bill that day, and particularly after that strange, strange intercepted expression of mixed shock and hope...

Too, he'd come up with a few more medically-related theories on Charlie's condition in the last few days that he thought the brothers might want to hear. At least he hoped they would, considering that they didn't all comprise what they might think of as 'good news'.

There was a light on, deep within the flat and shining through to the dim front window. Ren glanced at his watch, warded against Magical interference in a manner that wouldn't be effectively invented for a good thirty years.

_Eight forty._

He rang the bell quickly. A full minute passed. Just as he was about to ring again, the door opened. Bill blinked at him. He was barefoot, his dark auburn hair was freshly washed and loosed around his shoulders and he was dressed in green and grey checked pajama pants and a Guns ‘n’ Roses t-shirt.

"Hullo," Ren said after the prolonged moment. "May I come in?"

"What do you..." He stopped as Charlie's voice hailed him from within.

"Bill? Who is it?"

Again, Bill said nothing as Charlie, leaning one-handed on the wall, entered the room. He stopped as he saw Ren.

"Master Cartwright?" he said, obviously surprised. "What are you... Erhm. What brings you by?"

"It's just Ren. You said that I should come by  if I came up with something before Sunday. I did. So. Um. Can I..." He gestured. The two men just stared at him.  "I brought pie," he offered hopefully. "It's very good."

"What?"

"Pie. Blueberry pie. Made without magic, though like I said, you'll swear it's charmed to make your tastebuds sing.  I thought..." He trailed off at the bemused looks. "Never mind, then. I'll just follow the standard and bring wine or flowers next time. Gramps has lots; he'll never notice if I nick a few from his greenhouses."

Charlie shook himself.

"No, no. It's okay. Pie is good. Blueberry's even better. My favourite, actually. I've already eaten, but it'll be great for breakfast.  As for coming in, yeah, yeah, of course! For God's sake, Bill, don’t just leave him standing there; let him in!"

Bill stepped aside. He even took the bomber jacket, hanging it on a hook, and, accepting the bag, took it into the kitchen, and presumably, the refrigerator.

"Bill was just filling me in everything that happened today," Charlie said as they settled on the sofa.  "Would you like some tea? You must be totally knackered."

"I am a bit," Ren admitted. "But way too buzzed to sit still, much less sleep. And no on the tea. I’ve drunk enough of that and coffee today to sink a ship, and if I drink anymore, I won’t be able to do anything but float. Not a good thing when they have you lined up to rebuild the supports in a ruined underwater temple first thing. How are you feeling?"

“Loads better," Charlie said promptly. "For the relative quantity of loads, anyway. I think it's being out of the hospital. They made that big fuss over me going back to the Burrow, you know, because it's all podged together with magic, but St. Mungo's itself isn't exactly any better."

Ren looked him over carefully. He still looked painfully thin, of course he did; nothing was going to change there in four days, but his colour was higher, and the tremor in his hands was much reduced.

“You been out and about at all?” he asked.

“No. Not really. We came back here on Saturday, I puked up dinner, managed a wash, and fell into bed. Bill took me out in the chair Sunday morning to do a bit of shopping and we picked up a couple of books at the store across the street, but honestly, I haven’t been able to stay awake for more than a couple of hours at a go since.”

“It’s been doing him good though,” Bill said, speaking for the first time as he returned. “Last night was the first time in a month he hasn’t woken up with the sweats or muscle spasms. And he ate some soup about an hour ago, like he said, and hasn’t puked it up yet. I think maybe the treatment...”

He stopped.

“Have you been doing any magic around him at all?”

“No, of course not. My wand goes into the drawer as soon as I come in, and I don’t take it out till I leave for work.”

“Okay.” Ren collected himself. “These are all good things. You said that you were going to have house-elves?”

“Mum suggested it, yeah,” Bill said, extremely shortly. Charlie rolled his eyes.

“We’ve hired a Muggle cleaning lady,” he said. “To come in once a week, and to do a bit of cooking.  She was here this morning. Just about cried when she saw me; I told her I was just out of hospital and she made a keg of chicken soup and these truly fantastic peanut butter biscuits. Made me eat the lot while we watched Carnation Street.”

“Coronation Street,” Ren said. His lips tilted. “Careful with that one; it’s addictive.”

“Yeah, I got that. Anyway. No, no house-elves.  We figured if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right, and Bill did his research besides. This is the least magical six block radius in all England. Was he telling the truth?" he asked eagerly. "Your Patronus – Patronuses – are  twin Horntails, and you've got a mated set?"

"Yeah," Ren said. "And yeah. Harry and I bonded over that."

"Bugger me." He flopped back. " _That's_ something else again, innit?"

"So? What did you come up with?"

"Christ, Bill, you’re rude. He's not related to us, can't you even try?"

Ren's lips tilted again. "He's got his priorities sorted is all," he said, and to the suspicious elder Weasley... “I’ve identified the particular curse we’re working with."

Charlie's eyes widened. Bill sat up straight.

"Does that mean you know how to defuse it?" he demanded.

"It's not quite that simple,” Ren said. "It's a variant on the theme. A really nasty theme. The nastiest.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It’s the Cruciatius.”

* * *

They looked at each other, and at him.

“The... Uh?” Charlie said uncertainly. Bill’s face was a mask.

“The Cruciatus, in its original form,” Ren said carefully, “is meant to cause pain in bursts of intense, short term caster-controlled exposure. The long term damage that it can inflict can be considered a side effect, in that it’s not the spell’s intended purpose.What we’re dealing with here is an inverted variation. The point of _this_ spell is to inflict long-term, slow-acting damage, and it’s a lot more complex besides because the target isn’t the central nervous system or those portions of the brain involved in the physical perception of pain. The target is your magical core, and...” He took a deep breath. “The point, the end point, of it... Is to drive you insane through the related symptoms. It's set to ongoing automatic, slowed down, meant to affect you over years, and ends, not when the caster releases it, but at the logical stopping point... When you die from it.”

Charlie’s mouth sagged a bit.

“What kind of person...”

He clamped his mouth shut.

“You don’t want to know,” Ren said unhappily. “ _I_ don’t want to know. All I can tell you is that it probably was invented long before the Cruciatus itself; documented cases of wizarding cancer go back way before records of the invention of the Unforgivables, after all. They’re not that frequent, they never have been, but they are there. In that sense... Cruciatus is the variant, not the other way around.”

“Well, bugger,” Charlie slouched again. Bill was leaning back in his armchair now, arms crossed over his chest as he rubbed at his lips.

“So are you just here to provide us with this information,” he asked. “Or do you have ideas on how to do anything with it?”

"I don't know how to cure it," Ren said. "What I can do is what your healers have been trying to do - freeze it in its tracks, or rather, slow it to the point of negligible progression, but without causing any more damage in the meantime. Once that's done, it'll give me time to find a way to break the curse entirely."

"You planning on using those new techniques you've come up with that you were talking on this morning? Bio-runics?'

"Won't those be counterproductive?" Charlie looked from one to the other. "I mean... They're magic too, right?"

"No," Ren said. "Not exactly. Did you take Ancient Runes at Hogwarts?"

"No," Charlie said, even as Bill said - "Yes, of course."

"Okay. Well, here's the thing. The key thing, here. They... Runes, that is... They're not magic in and of themselves. They're _conductors_ for magic."

“Sorry?”

“Patterned lantern analogy?” Bill suggested. Charlie looked confused.

“It's not nearly as complicated as it sounds. Tin or aluminum lanterns are cut with different patterns on the sides that let the light through in shadow-shapes on the wall," Ren explained. "Runes channel light, or in this case, raw magic, into and through patterns of numbers, letters and shapes that define the parameters of spells. The patterns comprise the first half of the actively magical equation; the second depends on the application of appropriately brewed runic inks. _Those_ aren't actively magical either, they just contain proportionately large quantities of natural elements that respond best in the _presence_ of raw magic, through the infusion of certain minerals and whatnot in the base materials that simulate the soil and sediment most commonly found around subterranean ley-lines.  If I want to create a sequence that holds magic _in_ , I use ink that contain those. The runic inks I use to create sequences that _block_ magic, or keep it out, on the other hand, are composed of the types of minerals that have historically _rejected_ magical conductivity.”

"Oh." Charlie digested that. It looked a little painful. "And how would this work on a person? On me? I mean... I'd still have all that magic at work in my proximity once the runes you drew on me - I presume you'd draw them on me - kicked in, right?"

"Yes, I would, though they'd be more like tattoos, and yes, you would, but you'll still be in no danger, because they won't be drawing on externally shaped magic - that is, raw magic channeled and directed by someone else's core - to power themselves, they'd be drawing on raw magic attracted to and reshaped by your own core to power a shield specifically defined by the parameters of your own, original, magical signature. That kind of magic can't hurt you, because it's effectively native to you; the problems, as far as I can tell, start when other, outside sources of directed magic are aimed _at_ you. The runic shield would be designed to shut that sort of thing out; it would prevent those foreign magics from touching your infected core entirely and so the dragon inside you would starve. I don't know that it would die, but after the point, it would go into a coma, like you were in when you took the Draught of Living Death, and just... sit there, unless and until it started being provided with food again."

Charlie pondered that.

"So... If it's the incoming that causes the problems... Does that mean that I could cast magic, at least? I mean... I use my own resources to do that, right? Not anyone else's."

"No. I mean, it sounds alright, but that's where the real subtlety of the curse comes in. Everything - absolutely _everything_ -  made with magic, wands included, are chronically infused with remnants of the caster's, and/or creator's, magical signature. When you use such an object, their magics interacts with your own magic. Even things like magically prepared food, or food prepared by magical creatures is affected, and can affect you.  Not a big deal, really, your core normally wouldn't care... But right now? You have to consider yourself deathly allergic to anything incoming and not native to you, however tiny the amount."

"What about wandless magic?"

"That might be okay," he conceded. "You any good at it?"

"No."

"Incentive is everything," Bill said briskly. "We'll start working at it once you're feeling a bit stronger. In the meantime, what exactly," he asked Ren, "is the curse doing with all this foreign magic? Can you tell us?"

"It's using it to try and redefine the parameters of Charlie's core," the other man said promptly. "To rewrite his magical signature on every level."

"Into what?"

"Nothing. There's no desired end result; it's all about the chaotic interim, like an egg set to permanent scramble. That's what causes the core to go insane  - it completely loses the ability to ..." He cut himself off. "Look. There's a reason they've always defined the condition as cancer, okay? It's because what it mostly resembles. Think about it; when non-Magicals get cancer, the cells in their body mutate. They sicken and break and reform into unnatural mutant versions of themselves that grow and infect and overtake the whole. Once there are enough of them, they  form an army that rewrites the body into a maddened, poisoned, and self-poisoning version of the original. In the magical context...In the context _of_ your magic, and under normal circumstances, foreign magics, or, using our analogy, the invading, mutated cells, would bounce right off of your core and dissolve, no harm done. Magics  aimed at you in the form of spells or potions cause side-effects there, mind you - temporary ones that modify aspects of your signature temporarily:  think Polyjuice and whatnot, and colouring charms, and temporary human-to-other transfiguration - but they're not usually powerful enough, or aren't defined in terms that will allow them to stick to you  long enough, to effect permanent change. Eventually, your own signature will assert itself over the intruding, resolving things in however short or long a time. Right now, though, in your case... The curse is weakening your core's ability to 'bounce' spells, and the result is that it's constantly  incorporating elements of all of those foreign, mutated and intruding signatures into yours, that in turn are  trying to rewrite you. To redefine you, on every level there is, and not into something concrete and definite as I said, but into a bundle of chaotic and constantly unevolving random.  Eventually, if left unchecked..."

"I'll go mad with it," Charlie supplied. "And die. Painfully."

Ren nodded. They sat in silence for a bit.

"It really won't care about the magic I'm using to power the runes?" Charlie asked finally.

"No. The curse isn't interested in the outgoing. It's interested in the incoming, or that which it can warp."

"And how much will the runes keep out?"

"Quite a lot, I should think, once you've built up your strength again anyway, and when I inscribe them, I'll set them so that they can be adapted for new developments as I research them.  You might want to stay away from huge magical centres like the Ministry or St. Mungo's or Hogwarts or Diagon Alley on cautious principle, mind you - that'd just be oversaturation anyway you look at it - but that's with what I've got on tap now, you could certainly be around people casting magics at things around you, as long as they're careful not to aim it _at_ you."

"At me... So... Wait, what about potions? I can still take those, right, if I brew them myself?"

"No. No potion is made without a wand again: all that stirring, right, and even Master Potioneers still use wands made by someone else, don't they?  The biggest loss there is going to be be your inability to rely on healing magics and healing draughts of any kind for anything. You simply won't be able to think of wizarding medicine as an option if you're sick or damaged in any way, because the fix for even the commonest of ailments would be a thousand times worse than the problem. Everything from hangnails to the common cold to burns to broken limbs to infections... Unless you’re literally dying on the spot and there is no other way for you to survive whatever’s hurt you, you're now completely dependent on Muggle medicine."

Both brothers blanched as they thought on the implications of that.

"How come the healers don't know all this?" Charlie looked at a bit of a loss.

"Because they're looking at your condition as a disease," Ren said. "And you treat diseases and curses totally different ways. Ask Bill there.  If they'd understood what they were dealing with, really understood, the very first thing they'd have done is get you away from magics that could affect, compromise or change the very symptoms that they would have used to identify the original curse. I mean.... It makes a difference, doesn't it? You've only been in the Muggle world for four days, and you're already feeling better, aren't you? That's a good sign," he added, hoping desperately that it was the truth. "Four days isn't long at all, and if the curse really was that deeply entrenched, even with all they've accidentally done to you to hurry things along... I don't think you'd be feeling nearly as recovered as you say you are."

Charlie looked down at his feet.

"What do I need to do now?" he asked. "Aside from find a way to tell all the healers at St. Mungo's that they're fired?"

"They won't argue with you once I go in and explain just how badly they've buggered things up for you, I promise."

"They did mean well. And I am kind of the precedent, yeah? It's not like it was deliberate malpractice."

"No," Ren agreed. "But they're playing buggery soldiers with you because you have- had - no alternatives, and yes, because they were excited at the opportunity for new research, but  considering that they're not doing you any good - quite the contrary, it seems - they're in no position to argue the fact that you're wanting to try something different now.'

Charlie looked torn. Bill shook his head.

"This is your life, Charles," he said. "Literally. Not just your peripheral health, but your life. And yeah, okay, they've been nice to you, yeah, but nice won't cure you, will it? Isn't curing you."

"I thought you didn't trust him."

"I don't trust anybody," Bill said, more than a little dourly. "It's not personal." Both brother and guest laughed. The elder Weasley grimaced.

"You said that nothing they've done is helping," he said to his sibling. "That you can feel it that it isn't. And I don't want you to die.” He hunched his shoulders. "I don't know what I'd do without you. So... If you're willing to trust him... I'll try too."

Charlie reached out and took his hand.

"Okay," he said to Ren. "Okay. I'm in. We're in. What do we do?"

"I'll work up some personally tailored sequences to go with the standards, and translate them into a few discreet, and yes, permanent, tattoos," Ren said. His sense of relief was so profound that he thought for a moment he might actually vomit with it. "Nothing garish, I promise. We can ink those in early next week; it'll take me that long to design them anyway - I'll need a few drops of blood to help things along there - and I'd like to see how improved  you seem in the interim besides. You really do look heaps better than you did the last time I saw you. Meanwhile...  Eat, sleep, don't use magic, and don't allow it to be used on or around you. As you get  physically stronger, you'll build up a tolerance, but right now, you're not exactly in prime condition."

"Can you use runes to build me up faster?"

"No. You can't use the little you've got to make yourself stronger, so the power'd have to come from external sources, and that's not allowed. That means you have to do it the Nomaj way. Lots of rest, fattening foods and once you're up to it, exercise."

" _Exercise_? I barely have enough energy to get to the loo!"

"It'll come," Ren reassured him. "Also, it’s important that you care for your mental health. Get out as much as you can, as you're able. Find the library. Meet new people. Start a new hobby."

"How long is this going to take?"

"I don't know. I don't know what I'm working with, and I don't have a lot of colleagues, you know? I can call in people for certain aspects of analysis but the construction of the others... that's pretty much up to me. It could take months, or years, or..."

'I could be a Muggle forever," Charlie finished.

"A non-practicing Magical," Ren corrected. "I know how you were brought up, okay? I know what people think. It's not a fate worse than death. The Magical world is brilliant, but there are some pretty amazing things to learn and study and experience otherwise too. And at least you'll be able to be _around_ magic."

"Yeah, with people who think I'm crippled!"

Ren ran a hand over his hair.

“Look, Charlie,” he said again, bluntly. “I’m gonna be honest here. You’ve been dealt a shit hand. A really shit hand. I’m not arguing that. You did nothing to deserve it, nothing that rated it... You just slipped, and got up, and came up covered. It sucks, but it does happen.  You could just as easily have slipped on the reserves, gotten caught off-wind by a Chinese Fireball in heat, and gotten fried past the point of any healer alive to pretty you up. I can’t promise you the miracle you want, but by God, I can give you this much of one. One that’ll let you live a long, relatively pain free life, with your mind intact, with your loved ones around you, and maybe a family of your own one day... And that’s magic all its own, let me tell you. When it comes right down to it, the rest is just silly goddamned wand-waving.  You can have _hope_ for the rest if you want, it’s always nice, but you’ll learn as time goes on that the essentials are called essentials for a reason. Everything else... It's just gravy. Tasty gravy, but gravy.”

Charlie looked at his hands.

“I know you’re right,” he said. “It’s just really soon.“ He wiped at his face. Ren suddenly felt like an absolute ass.

“I know,” he said as gently as he could manage it. “I know that too. And I won’t just be here to help with the medical side of things. I can help with the rest too.”

“Why? I mean... Why? You don’t even know me.”

Ren looked down at his own hands.

“It’s not about my wife,” he said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.’

“No?”

“No. I just... You know how you said you like the big scary ones?”

“Yeah.”

“I can relate. And I know I don’t look it, but I’m used to _being_ the big scary one besides. How do you think I ended up with a mated pair of Horntails adopting me, and serving as my Patronuses?’

“Makes mine look kind of piddly,” Charlie agreed.

“Uh?”

“The reserves are huge. Best way to send a message over long distances, Patronuses, but I guess you know that. The other dragon wranglers used to laugh themselves silly when they saw mine coming.”

“Ah, it’s not so bad,” Bill said. “At least you _can_ cast one.”

“You’re a curse-breaker and you can’t?” Ren asked, surprised.

“Nope. Might not have noticed, Cartwright, but I’m not an inherently perky sort of bloke.”

Ren laughed. “Still funny, though. What is it?”

“A hummingbird,” Charlie said in disgust. “A bloody pretty, mincing little _hummingbird_.”

Ren nearly choked, coughing so violently that the other man had to pound him on the back.

“Who knows,” he managed. ‘Dire, life-altering events can change the form there. Maybe when you’re fit again, it’ll have changed?”

“Bugger me, I hope so. It’s just embarrassing, like I said. Wait. Yours has changed? Bill said you just got the Horntails recently.”

“It has, yeah. Actually, it’s changed twice in my life. It was the same as my dad’s first. A stag. I got the hang of it when I was ... Thirteen? I was missing him a lot that year. Once I settled into myself, though, it changed. Kept it till recently, when I got the wands. I’m not sure it would have changed even then, but that they’re big drama queens and like the show. And to show everyone I’m theirs. Proud parents of sorts, I suppose.”

“What was in between? If you don’t mind my asking,” he added belatedly. “And Bill almost got it more than once. It just depends how long it’s been since he’s seen Mum.”

 “It’s not that I mind,” Ren said carefully. “It’s just... It’s in the past. It represented a part of me, a time in my life, that I’m trying to leave behind. I don’t want to be rude, but I’d rather not talk about it. Not just yet, anyway.’

“Fair enough. Alright. Anything else you have to throw at us?”

“Not offhand... But before I go,” he said. “Are you coming along again tomorrow, Bill?”

“Scheduled to, yeah. Why?”

“First three hours before we port out I’m due to lecture on my new developments, after which, I’ve got to inscribe everyone coming with examples to show they work. Might as well do yours now, if you don’t object?” He dug out his biro set.

“I suppose,” Bill said. “What do they do?’

“There’s the warmth one, since we’re going so far down. One for your blood, to keep it properly oxygenated; past the point, you have to come up, and again, we’re going to be too far down for that for it to be convenient, and a special one to trigger emergency remote apparition up top if you get hurt and can’t manage it yourself. We’ll have a person on shore to serve as anchor there, for just that reason.”

“Ah. Okay. On my wrists, like you did with Professor Shelley?’

"The warmth one and the oxygen one, yeah. The remote one goes on the soles of your feet.”

Bill shrugged, and held out his arms. Charlie leaned forward, fascinated.

“Don’t you have to trigger them with the wand?” he asked.

“I’ll do that at the school. “ Ren worked carefully.

“Gonna take a long time to do everybody,” Bill observed as he watched.

“No, Only the adjudicators are going under, and I can draw and lecture at the same time.”

“Are you going to do the same runes on the goblins?”

“There are a few differences, but essentially, yes. Okay. Feet.” He slid back and patted his knee. Bill propped the left obligingly. Ren set the first biro in place... And frowned as the tip slid off the sole, skidding wildly.

“What the...”

“Sorry. Tickles.” Bill braced himself again. Ren set it again. This time it flew right out of his hand, bouncing off the wall. Bill examined the smear on the bottom of his arch as Ren went to retrieve it.

“Long day, man,” he said. “Shaky hands. Maybe we should wait till tomorrow?’

“No, that’s not it.” The would-be Wards Master frowned even more deeply. “I don’t get it. You took the other sets just fine. You don’t have any problems apparating or using magical transportation, do you?”

“I’m pants on a broom for anything other than getting from Point A to Point B, but no.”

Ren sat down. “Let’s try this one more time.” Bill offered him the right foot. He got two thirds of the way into the sequence this time before the biro went flying again.

‘Better,” Bill said. His curiosity was piqued now. “What did you do differently?”

“Nothing, just reversed the order of the runes I used to accommodate for the opposed foot. I was fine till I got to... Wait. Do you have any magical tattoos?”

“Any... What?”

“Sometimes artists incorporate runes into their designs without realizing what they’re doing. They think they look pretty, and don’t do their proper research on what they’re actually inscribing. They don’t mean anything- don’t normally do anything, because they don’t use proper inks - but I’ve run across the like once or twice in the past, and it’s usually just a case of tweaking their design so it’s not-quite-what it looks like.”

There was a long, long pause.

“Bill,” Charlie said.

“I’ll call in a substitute,” his brother said. “Or let the goblins know. they’ll find someone else.” He got to his feet. Charlie grabbed at him.

“Billy,” he said urgently. “ _Show_ him! He said he can _tweak_ them! Maybe he can help, maybe...”

“ _Shut_ it, Charles!”

“They never said that you can’t get it fixed!” Charlie said, his voice rising.  “I’ve read the goddamned _contracts_! They benefit and benefit and benefit, they use you like a goddamned whore because they think there _isn’t_ any way to fix it, so they _can_ , but they never once said you _can’t_!"

Bill’s face spasmed. Ren sat, stunned.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine.”  The Heir of Weasley hauled his shirt off. His torso was lean and milk- pale – almost wraithlike, despite the fine, slim layer of work-induced muscle.  “It’s not a tattoo. I don’t know what it is, but...”

He turned his back. Ren stared. Got to his feet, and came over to trace the designs that had... He swallowed bile... Literally been _carved_ into the other man's back.

“What the hell,” he whispered. “What the bloody buggering _hell_?’

"What?” Charlie said. “What? Do you recognize it? I mean... Do you know what it is?" Ren paid him absolutely no mind.

“You see things,” he said to Bill. “Don’t you. You _see_ things. In visions. It’s why you’re so good at curse-breaking; every time you go to a new site, it’s as if you’ve been there before. As if you’re seen the place through someone else’s eyes. And what's waiting there, and how to get past it all, and at what's beyond.  It’s why the goblins are so protective of you, isn't it? You’re probably the best investment they’ve made in five hundred years, never mind the cost of that permanent Notice-Me-Not they've got on you so that none of their rivals will ever get a good enough look at their prize in order to entice you away. Did they ask your permission on that, by the way? Do you even know it's _there_?"

Bill turned slowly and looked down at him.

 “I think you’d better explain,” he said. “Now.”

 “Put your shirt on first. I can’t think with that out there.”

 _It can’t be. It_ can’t _be.  The coordinates there...God... Please, God. If you're out there, in either universe..._ Don't let him die. _Don't let_ either _of_ _them die. Not till I get rid of this thing, not till..._

“With what out there,” Bill said, but he pulled the shirt on anyway.

“It’s an anchor rune,” the reborn wizard said. “An anchor rune... To another world." **_My_** _world. I don't_ understand, _I don't... "_ I couldn’t inscribe the anchor rune on you because you’ve already got one."

"Another... _world_? WHAT?" Charlie nearly fell off the sofa.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Bill said deliberately. “Are you going on about?”

“First things first, Billy. Whatever it is... Can you fix it?" Charlie demanded. "I mean... I don’t know a thing about runes, and even I can tell that the thing’s just not right.”

“No,” Ren said, through his abject, dreamy terror. _How old is my Bill now? Born in November, 1970... Coming up on two years since I Crossed; that makes it 2118 there now... A hundred forty eight, then, on the twenty ninth. Oh, Bill, you old... Don't you die on me, brother mine. Not till... **Why would you have done this**? What were you trying to accomplish, this wasn’t part of the plan, this wasn’t...  _ “It’s not right. It’s very, very wrong. Distorted, crude... but there’s nothing in there to close it. Well, no, it’s closed, but not sealed.” He sat down and tried to collect himself. "Okay. Okay. First things first, like you said. You're going to have to take my word for the underlying premise, and it's a pretty damned crazy premise, but there it is. You don't believe me, go down to the Ministry lunchroom, find an Unspeakable, whisper 'parallel dimensions' at him, and watch yourself disappear. Like magic, you'd swear, and everyone who ever knew you will be charmed to forget you ever existed."

"Uh?"

"No sense of humour, Unspeakables. Trust me on that one. Anyway. Long version: we live in a multiverse comprised of a literally infinite number of differentiated, yet associated parallel universes:  some near-identical, some so different they'd make your brain explode if you were to try and relate. Short version: there are other worlds than these.  On some of those similar worlds, there are analogs, or doubles, of everyone you've known or ever will know.  Some lead near identical lives. This... That...." He gestured to Bill's back. "Is a window to one of those worlds. Not even a window, more like a torn hole. I have no idea what the caster was intending to accomplish there, but because it was never properly closed, or rather resealed, once it was opened... You, Bill, as the host, get glimpses of things through your double’s memories. He was - is - a career curse-breaker too. Been to a lot of the same places you've been to, I reckon, or rather, the other way around. You go to the same places he's been, because you've seen him go, and watched him work out how to get through. You need to quit with that, by the way. No two universes, however similar, are ever exactly the same, and considering your mutual line of work, one day, the dangerous differences will catch up with you."

“I’ve been alright so far,” Bill said cautiously. “In accommodating. Mostly. There’ve been a couple of sticky moments, and dead ends where I thought there should be branching paths, and curses that didn’t respond quite the way I seemed to remember they should, but it's never... I mean... I don't rely on what I've seen entirely. I'm good at my job in my own right, you know?" That last was suddenly defensive and sullen again.

“I'm sure you are," Ren said. “That being said... You didn’t do this to yourself, obviously.“ _No more than my Bill did, from his end. He couldn’t have; he couldn’t have. He had to have had help from both sides, but...._ “Who helped you there?’

There was another long pause.

“He can’t talk about that,” Charlie said. “We're pretty sure there's a geas in the mess somewhere, because he's never been able to. Not to anybody but me. I can say it , though. Nothing say I can't. It was Mum.”

_Mu..._

Ren squeezed his eyes shut,  pressed his knuckles to his lips and bit back the expletives.

“I can close it,” he said instead.  “Temporarily. But to deactivate it... To remove it...”

“You can _remove_ it?” Bill sat up straight, his blue eyes blazing as hard as Gin’s ever had.

“Yes. Though once I deactivate it, a lot of it will fade on its own. You can get a proper tattoo to cover what's left."

“When?”

“Erhm.  I can close it now. “ He fumbled at his pockets. “Well, no. I’ll have to go back to Hogwarts first.  I need some specific ink. Actually, you’ll have to come with me. It’s got some wandwork involved. Can’t do that in front of Charlie, I’m afraid. “  
  
“Wll you be alright by yourself, Charles?”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘course. I was alright all day, wasn’t I, and this is important. Christ. Go.”

“Wait,” Bill said belatedly. “You’ve worked your ass off all day. You should be resting, not...”

“I’m not going to be able to sleep till I get this done,” Ren said bluntly. “As long as it's there, your life is at risk. No, everything's at risk.“

“Huh?'

"You have an effective rift in time and space carved in your back, Weasley. One with a door hanging half off its bloody hinges. The original's not done up properly - if it were, we'd have more problems than you could even begin to imagine - but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to leave it alone. Right now, the only thing that's keeping it stable is the fact that both you and your double are still alive. If one of you kicks it though, the entire thing will implode, and trust me. _Trust_ me... _That_ , we do not want."

"But..."

"It should have sealed itself when the job was done," he cut in. "Whatever that job was. It's how these thing are designed. But it didn't. It's been left for twenty years. Twenty years, and you practically throwing yourself into death's arms every day the last few..."

 _And my Bill turning a hundred forty-eight at the end of the month. Christ. There_ is _a God. There_ is _no other explanation._

"Will it stop the pain?" Charlie asked directly.

"CHARLES!"

"Pain?"

"It's why he works for the goblins,' he said. "They provide him with stuff that helps as part of his contract. They might not know what they're dealing with, but they know it gives him a leg up as a curse-breaker, and that the pain that comes with it distracts him. So they supply him with the good stuff, that up till now he hasn't been able to afford without handing over ninety nine percent of his treasure haul. Yes, it hurts him."

"Of course it does." Ren was exhausted, suddenly. "Yes. It will help. Once it's closed... It all should stop."

_And once it's done... I swear on my magic that I will never say one bad word against or about Mum again._

_Molly Goddamned Bloody Buggering Bollocking_ Weasley _, on the other hand, had better have a bloody good explanation waiting when I show up on_ her _doorstep._

“How long will it take?” Bill ventured.

“I’m putting a temporary deadbolt on: nothing fancy, just effective, so... Half an hour maybe? To do the proper, refined job... I’ll have to do the equivalent of exploratory surgery. That'll take a full day at least, but it can wait a bit too, once the lock's in place. Next week, maybe. I can see individual runes here, and bits of sequences, but they’re stacked badly. I need to untangle them before I can see what I’m working with. Oh, and I’ll also need to talk to your mother.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to know where she got the templates she used,” he said. “And who showed her how to incorporate them, and to do the spellwork involved.  The way it looks now... It’s like she traced paper designs on your back, and just...” He swallowed bile again. “Do you know how old you were when it was done?”

Bill said nothing.

“Fourteen months,” Charlie said. “Mum was pregnant with me.”

‘Four... _What_?”

“I was born early,” the younger Weasley said. “Really early. Three months. I kind of... died, actually. Mum wasn’t at St. Mungo’s for it, though. It’s a good thing, really; they wouldn’t have allowed it there. I just would have died. They brought her in after, but before she did... The midwife they called in to save me used blood magic. Female blood magics.”

“You  died,” Ren repeated. " _Female_ magics? " And with that one phrase, everything slammed into place. His mind was exploding, he thought. Literally _exploding_. “You’re absolutely sure you died?”

“Mum says so, yes. They had to pull me back. She says she felt it... My soul... Me... Snap... Then retether."

Ren just held his head. _Bloody Gin. Bloody hell. Hannah bloody Abbott and her bloody Hen’s Club, and Hermione, and Lavender. And Su, and..._ It hurt. It made perfect sense... But at the same time...It didn’t. He couldn’t imagine any situation where any of the women he knew would do... _that_... to a child. To _Bill_. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. It didn’t help.

“Ren,” Charlie said. “I think I would very much like to know what you’re thinking now.”

Again, Ren had to struggle for breath.

 “You died,” he managed. “You died, and the midwife pulled you back. But it wasn’t _you_. Him. It was your counterpart, _there_. They opened the portal through you, Bill, with my Bill’s blood. Your mum and dad... Theirs wouldn't have been strong enough to do it; each of them only shared half your genes. The ritual would have required both of them to summon the power that Bill  could provide as your anchor on his own.  As a full-blooded brother, the only sibling at that point... He would have had the loudest voice. The strongest hold on you.  And if it had gone properly... He wouldn’t have had a mark on him. The marks would have gone to my Bill. But it didn’t go properly. It went, but somewhere it all went wrong in translation, if only in parts, and the intended physical effects were reversed. He – your Bill, _you,_ Bill - should never have gotten hurt at all. There should have been ink that just washed off, that just...”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Bill said deliberately. “Are you going on about?” But to Ren, it was as if he wasn't there.

“Charlie,” he said helplessly, turning to the stunned man on the sofa. “You said you’d be at the station. If you could. When it was my time. I made you promise. You said you would... If you could. But in the end... You said you'd be where I was. Wherever that was. You _promised_.”

There was a long, deep moment of silence... And then Charlie’s eyes widened and widened, and widened again. Ren stepped forward. And again, till they were almost touching. He reached out, and they _were_ touching, Ren’s hand brushing the cloth of his t-shirt, over his heart. It beat warmly and strongly under his fingers.

“I tried,” the man who had been born Harry Potter said unsteadily. “I did. I tried. But you said I had to _mean_ it. And I said...”

The wide eyes opened and closed. Once.

 “I. You said... You’d never mean it. Not with me.” Charlie’s hand came up to touch his own head. Lightly, barely, brushing his temples, then down again to cover the other man's fingers, still splayed over his heart. “You said... I remember. I remember now. Why am I only remembering now? You said it... And I died... But I didn’t... I don’t..." His face spasmed.  He rose to his feet. The thin, freckled hands came up then, both of them, to touch Ren's face, to trace the displaced and straightened lightning bolt scar in wonder. He looked down at himself as if he'd never seen his own body before, and back again. "Oh my God. _Harry_? Is it really, really you? Am I... Is it _me_? Really... Really... _Me_?"

They stared at each other. Around them the universe shuddered and broke and reformed, reshaped.

“ _You didn’t die_ ,” Harry whispered. “Because I didn’t _mean_ it. You said it had to be me, because you _knew_ I wouldn't mean it.   Not in any world. It wouldn't... If I'd meant it, you would have had to go On... But since I didn't.... _You had the choice._ And you came  here instead. Somehow...  somehow... Gin, and the others... They set it up.  Gin, and the girls... And Bill, our Bill: he would have had to have been involved too because they would have needed an anchor on both ends so that you could swap out,  because everything, _everything_ has to balance. One newborn soul coming into the world, one matched adult soul just gone over, both passing long before their proper time... They managed to write you into the project nearly a hundred years after you _died_ , Charlie, and when they did... They sent you here to wait for me."

 


	12. Of Sawdust Restaurants With Oyster Shells

 

**Thursday, November 20, 1991**

**11 A.M.**

Bill Weasley was a Slytherin.

It should have come as no surprise, the grey and green checked pajama pants and the chronic compulsion to annoy his mother considered, but there it was. Colour him surprised, Ren thought,  and leaned back in his chair as he picked the onions methodically out of his egg sandwich. The lectures that morning had gone as well as could be expected, and now he was watching, most entertained, as the goblins huddled together at the brunch buffet, glaring as one in the direction of Slytherin Table as their most singular asset lounged comfortably amid his former house-mates and regaled them with literal Tales From the Crypt.

It was, Ren had to admit, a sight well worth glaring, or rather, staring at. Bill's rich auburn hair shone like the sun; his long legs stretched almost all the way to Gryffindor Table, and his brand new Patronus, a huge silvery black panther that had glowed with a light that nearly blinded when it had prowled out of his wand in response to Rhonda Fawley’s coy invitation to ‘show us what you’ve got, Mr. Weasley’, seemed, like its caster, in no hurry to go anywhere at all. Its raspy purr, in fact, rivaled the purr of laughter at the back of Ren’s mind as he wiped his fingers on his napkin and examined the list of required examinables just handed him by the adjudicators.

“This is going to take all night,” he said bluntly. “Does it really matter what spells I use as long as I get the job done?”

“Sorry?” The closest adjudicator said, attempting without significant success to distract herself from Bill. The rebound effect of that long-term Notice-Me-Not was really quite astounding... From the second the young man had entered the castle that morning, no one present had been able to take their eyes off of him. It had put quite a crimp in the overall impact of Ren's bio-runics presentation, but at least, the would-be Warder thought philosophically, his distracted audience (the goblins excepted) had been in a good mood at the end of it all, so he wouldn't likely lose many marks for the fact.

“You want the temple shored up,” said would-be-Warder said patiently, valiantly resisting the urge to wave his hand in front of the adjudicator's face to get her proper attention. “I get that. These...” He waved the list. “Will get the job done, but if I have to show you how I incorporate each of them individually toward the given end, we’ll be down there till midnight. It’s really not necessary. If we do it my way, it’ll produce the same end result, but we’ll all be home for tea again.”

That _did_ get the adjudicator's attention, and all of her colleagues' too.

“We’re not leaving till noon!” she protested.

“And?”

“There's no way you can get it all done in four hours! And how do we know your way won’t compromise the end results?”

“Seeing is believing? And this one won’t work anyway. At all.” Ren pointed. The adjudicators all examined their sheets, where the indicated line was now glowing. “Don’t you people keep up with non-Magical politics, even a little?”

“Uh?”

“The Nomaji - Muggles - just had a war in that part of the world. Took up all of January. Bombs, chemical weapons, you name it. That sort of stuff gets in the water, and okay, it wasn’t our specific body of water, but water...” Ren made a vague, if indicative, gesture. “It gets around. Along with the stuff in it. We would have to adapt for the additions in any case.”

“How do we know you can perform these spells if you don’t do them?” one of the goblins said suspiciously.

_Oh, for..._

“These are the spells that you need to build the temple, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“And you'll define my success by the presence of a completed and structurally sound edifice at day's end?”

“Yes.”

“Your call, then. We can do it your way, with those adaptations as necessary, or we can do it my way in a third the time and without all the extra fuss and bother. You’ll get your temple one way or the other, but if you humour me, we’ll all be a lot less tired tomorrow morning, and these, these, and _these_ sequences...” More lines glowed. “Won’t be rendered to mush within the next five years as a result of those unfortunate chemical pollutants I just mentioned.”

The adjudicators dithered amongst themselves. Ren segregated more onions as he waited for their inevitable capitulation. Try as he might (and to be fair, he had never been in the habit of trying particularly hard, no matter his age), subverting his inner grouchy old coot in the face of such abject rejection of logic was more effort than it was worth... And after hauling Bill Weasley back to Hogwarts the night before, stripping him down and having his way with him, runically speaking, he was not in a particularly accommodating mood to begin with.

Given that, things were not quite as bad as they might be.  He _had_ gotten enough sleep in the end, surprisingly enough. Neil had come by precisely on the dot of eleven with his promised special – a tailored (and extremely illegal) sleeping potion that allowed for the effects of twice the hours of actual rest - but before Ren had been able to take advantage, there had been Bill to deal with. And Bill... Bill, unsurprisingly, had kept pestering him with questions, or rather, Questions, as he tried to work.

Ren had tried. He really had. It was a lot to absorb, he knew, even given the younger man's lifetime's worth of peculiar and inexplicable visions, and God only knew that he, as Harry, had had enough of his own version of those to ever deny anyone any answers he could provide as soon and as completely as he was able. So he'd answered Bill's questions, as patiently and thoroughly as possible... Honestly, the circumstances considered (and never mind the rankling sense of injustice on the fact that there was no one handy to answer _his_ questions), he thought he'd shown remarkable restraint.

Still.

Still.

It was a truth universally acknowledged among every one of those individuals who had ever known him that there was nothing in any dimension guaranteed to put _any_ version of Harry Potter in as bad a mood as unsolicited interruptions when he was trying to save the world.

“Would you mind,” he’d said finally and testily, siphoning up yet another magically liquidized blot on the young man's bared back, “ _shutting_ it, just for half a bloody buggering _second_? I _know_ you’re confused. I know this is confusing. I know you want answers, but if you don’t shut your yap, kid, _now_ , I could literally blow you up. _And_ me, _and_ the rest of the bloody buggering multiverse!”

“But... OW!" Bill had glared over his shoulder as he’d lain shirtless and face down on Ren’s bed. Ren, seated astride his hips as he worked, a wand in one hand and a double-ended biro in the other (his own socks and jumper had been abandoned at the beginning of the exercise; the combination of the runes on his wrists, his situationally high blood pressure and the prospect of accidentally triggering the runic apocalypse were making him sweat uncomfortably)  glared back. In the end the younger man subsided, pulling the pillow under his head.

“Fine,” he said sullenly. “Do what you have to do. After you’re done though... I want mine.”

“That's what she said.” Ren resumed working. “Now be quiet. You’ll bring everyone running, and I don't know about you, but this is not a scenario I want to have to explain to Professor Sprout.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of silence spells?”

“Contraindicated. I have a tie over there, though. It’d work just as well as a gag.”

Bill, surprisingly, had snorted at that. “Alright,” he said, and  ten minutes later, when Ren had finished and swung off  him, collapsing bonelessly and with a huge sigh of relief on the ridiculously comfortable mattress...

“Was it good for you?” the patient asked politely as he sat up and reached for his  clothes.

“The earth didn't move or explode, so that's a good sign anyway, no matter what anyone tells you." Ren turned his head to face him. “ _Did_ you know about the permanent Notice-Me-Not?”

“Yeah. Though that wasn’t the goblins. That was Mum again; she put it on me when I was a baby so that no one would notice my back or ask questions, or...” He paused. “Why can I talk about it to you now?”

“Because I turned it off. The Notice-Me-Not, I mean, along with the geas of related silence and everything else. You should get a lot more active female attention now. No, no need to thank me there; I was just doing my job."

“I get enough attention, thank you. Just not from witches.”

“Huh?”

“Muggle girls,” Bill explained, tucking in his shirt. “They just assume I have a really weird tattoo. Witches would know something’s up.”

“Is that why you live and dress like a Muggle?”

“No. That's to annoy Mum again."

The bed sank slightly. Ren turned his head again as his guest sat beside him. He looked far more worried now than annoyed.

"Spit it out," he-who-obviously-lived-to-save-worlds said, resigned. "That way at least one of us will get some sleep tonight."

“It's just... I earn them a lot of money,” Bill said, troubled. “The goblins, that is. A _lot_ of money. I don’t know what’s going to happen there now that I can’t do my job.”

“You can still do your job, just on the level that every other junior curse-breaker does his job.” Ren flexed, sat up and crossed his legs. “You'll just have to tell them that whatever advantage you had... It’s gone. Worn off. Show them your back. You might not be feeling any effects yet, but the visuals will be more than apparent by breakfast tomorrow."

“But then they’ll know you were involved! And after what you said this morning on being able to work off of a bio-rune that someone else created... They're not stupid, goblins, and obviously, considering they run the banks, are quite capable of higher math."

“I can take care of myself. And they can’t penalize you for seeking medical treatment, Weasley. Didn’t Charlie say that there wasn’t anything in your contract against it?’

“No, there’s not, but...”

“If they have a problem with it," the reborn wizard overrode him, "they can take it up with me. I’ll tell them the truth, under magical oath - that the thing was going to kill you any day now. I won’t mention your counterpart or his age, but I don't have to, do I? The fact doesn’t need elaboration, and the _fact_ is, it's not a lie. Your counterpart was - is - going to be hundred forty-eight on your next mutual birthday, and if he'd died while you were yet linked, from old age or otherwise, you would have gone with him. Messily and painfully. Helping you.... From my point of view, any point of view,  never mind the broader implications - was the only moral thing to do.”

Bill looked down at his feet.

“Thank you, then,” he said. “I don’t...”

“Just... Go home,” Ren said wearily. "I'll be by on Sunday, and you can ask me all the questions you want then."

“Can I ask you one more thing before I go?” he ventured.

_So young. So absolutely incapable of taking a hint. **God.**_

“Go on."

“If Charlie... If he was swapped out... Where's my brother? I mean... The soul of the baby who was my brother?”

“It's gone On. It passed. It passed before the exchange happened. Just before. As it left its body, Charlie's soul... my Charlie’s – passed it in transit. In the opposite direction. The magics reaching out snapped it into place in the dying body.”

“But you said... You said he died of cancer. Full-blown cancer. If his magical core was insane, why didn’t it bring the insanity with it?”

Ren considered that.

“I don't have all the answers, obviously, but if I were to guess... There’s a place between,” he said finally. “Between life and death. Everyone sees it as something, or rather some place, different. For me... It was always a train station. King's Cross, yeah, the place where my life truly ended and began, the first time I was eleven. Anyway. You arrive there. After.  Once there, normally, under normal circumstances... You go On. If things aren't normal though... If  there's a choice to be made... That's where you make your choice. And it’s blank there. Clean. White. You’re healed of everything. All pain, all trauma... Your memories go with you there, but physically, it's like you're made new in preparation for what comes next. If Charlie – my Charlie – went there, after he died... He would have come _here_ completely healed. It would have been different if he’d gone back to his own original and dying body, but he didn’t, did he? He - his soul, and his renewed core with it, was tethered to your baby brother’s body. One free of injury or damage, even if it was still evolving. Developing. And the boost from a incoming, fully developed, healed magical core would have allowed that body, however premature, to survive its early birth.”

“So... You're saying that Charles is possessed by another version of himself?” Bill asked cautiously.

“No,” Ren said. “He _is_ himself. Only himself. When it comes right down to it, the man you've always called your brother is as much your brother now as he ever was. As he's ever been. The rest is just displaced metaphysics.”

"Meta..."

" _Sunday_ , Weasley!"

“Right. Right. One more. Would he have died without the interference? The baby, I mean?”

“Yes. I told you already; he _did_ die. The magics couldn’t take hold until or unless he passed. Nobody killed _anybody_ here, I promise.”

“Not even you?”

Ren paused at that sank in.

_Huh._

"Apparently not,” he said. He watched as Bill stood again, tugging on his boots and jacket now.

"Harry," Bill said.

“Yeah?” he said automatically.

“Why didn’t you mean it? I mean... Why couldn't you?"

Ren closed his eyes tight. Behind his lids the dark sparkled: splashes of white in a black void. His head was very quiet.

“I need to get some sleep,” was all he said.

“I can’t apparate out from the castle without your help,” Bill pointed out. Ren opened his eyes again and sighed.

_Of course you can’t._

He heaved himself up, barefoot and shirtless yet, and slung an arm around the startled young man. Seconds later...

“There,” he said. “I trust you can manage the rest of the way on your own?”

“Er,” Bill said. The gathered patrons at the Leaky Cauldron gawked, drinks at their collective lips. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Awesome.” Ren yawned. “See you in the morning, then. Sleep tight.”

And with that, he'd cracked out. It hadn't exactly been kind, he knew, but then again... The Notice-Me-Not, though deactivated, wouldn't truly start fading for another few hours. No one at the Leaky, no matter how embarrassed Bill was, would remember him, beyond again the fact that he was an object - probably male, probably human - that took up physical space. 

Ren put the list down as the adjudicators argued, and reached out and picked up the folded newspaper sitting beside his plate. It was so strange, he thought as he examined the photo on the front page. His chest hair had just been so ... _there_... in his last life. Now...

It wasn't. He had to resist the urge - again - to peek down his shirt front just to confirm. Fortunately, the urge was forestalled by a clamour from the buffet again, originating not from the goblins, but from a tense-faced girl squared off, increasingly loudly, against the apparent lot of them. Ren craned his neck, half-rising from his chair in curiosity. His curiosity turned to vague alarm as he realized who the girl was.

“Have you cleaned it out?” she was demanding.

Her square, sweet face was pale and determined, her jaw set. The goblins, unsurprisingly ignored her. She actually reached out and grabbed one by the shoulder. He shook her off looking down, as much as was possible given that she was a good foot and a half taller than he was, his nose at her, as if she was a mutt who'd just pissed on his shoe.

“I _said_ ,” she said, louder this time. "Have you cleaned it _out_!" Fudge seated not far off, chuckled in uncertain and indulgent alarm. Tamsin Applebee ignored him. Bill looked over. Ren looked back and forth. Tamsin turned her own head and stared hard at him.

_Okay then. Message received._

“Cleaned what out, Miss Applebee?” Ren asked.

“We don’t have time for this,” the goblin snapped. “We need to be on our way!”

“The exam site,” Tamsin said loudly. ‘In Rio. They can’t tell you where they’re sending you, I get that, but it's in Brazil. You grew _up_ in Brazil, Master Cartwright." Her tone was decidedly strained. “You _know_ the kind of things that live there. Only not all of them are _obvious_ , are they? Some of them... Some of them are the kinds of things that just might have been _missed_!"

“He’s got the credentials to handle anything that comes along,” the chief goblin snapped again. “Get _along_ , girl!”

“But...” She looked agitated now, almost to the point of tears. Pomona Sprout rose from her chair and came over to the girl, talking gently and inaudibly as she tried to lead her away. Most uncharacteristically, Tamsin shoved her off, dodging around her startled Head of House. A streak of light – Rhodes playing with her snidget – caught Ren's eye. Just like that, he realized what Tamsin was trying to do.

“I’d like to see the coordinates, please." He rose to his feet. The goblins  turned to him _en masse._

“Sorry?”

‘I grew up in Brazil, as Miss Applebee said,” he said. “I’ve been over most of it, and those bits I haven’t seen... Well. There are reasons. And you haven’t answered Tam's question: a very reasonable question I might add, no matter the source, and that considered... I find myself very, very interested in hearing your answer. _Has_ the examination area been cleaned out?’

There was a pause.

“Of...” The chief goblin stalled.

“Things!" Tamsin said loudly. “ _Dangerous_ things!”

Ren said nothing, just turned his head to face her full on. She met his eyes squarely. Even from the distance, now that he was probing, he could sense that her mental shields were down in open, desperate invitation. He uttered the word silently and slipped gently into her mind, closing his mental vision firmly to all but the presented relevant... The projected clarity (never mind the content) of the thoughts and images  that met his mind nearly took his breath away. In her panic, the girl wasn’t making the barest attempt to disguise or hide the full extent of her natural talents. No, Ren corrected himself. She didn’t know _how_ to hide them. She was a brilliant natural Legilimens, yes. He'd always known that much. In this world, or perhaps just at this age, though, her skill at Occlumency was next to non-existent. 

_This girl needs proper training. If Fudge ever gets an idea of the true extent of what she can do..._

“Master Cartwright?” Amelia Bones stood as he slipped out of Tamsin's mind as carefully as he'd entered it, smiling at her reassuringly as he settled back. “What’s going on?”

“Well?” he said to the goblins, ignoring her. “Are you going to show me the coordinates or not?”

“It’s not standard protocol,” the chief goblin began.

“It's not disallowed under the terms of the contract, though. And I would like to remind you,” Ren cut him off, not entirely pleasantly (or quietly), “that you are bringing me in as a Warder, not as a DADA expert or a duelist. I have the relevant skills there, yes, but you are not actually paying me for them. If I go in there and find that the area has not been ‘cleaned out’, as Miss Applebee put it – that you have, in fact, chosen the particular site in the hopes that you will get said site both cleared _and_ set up - I will feel quite, _quite_ entitled to file a claim against Gringotts for my non-Warding related services afterwards.  On another, not entirely irrelevant personal note, _you_ might not care if I am awarded my Mastery, but I most definitely, _definitely_ do. If I don’t get it because I don’t have enough physical time to finish the exam because of things you haven’t told me about and that you should be paying me for anyway...” He stared the head goblin straight in the eyes. “It _will_ cost you.”

The goblins glared, then retreated into their huddle again, muttering. Ren crossed his arms and waited. Tamsin jittered. Across the hall, Bill’s lips quirked. A huff sounded. At last, the smallest of the goblins broke away and came over, reluctantly handing over a card. Ren examined it, his suspicions and the results of Tamsin's inadvertent mind-touch with the goblin leader, triggered by her accidental brush against his arm in the lunch-line, both fully confirmed.

 _Oh, you buggering little_ shits. _That's new too; since when are the goblins assassins for hire? Drop me into the area and report me conveniently disappeared: no body, no witnesses... No, no. Don't tell me. I'm going to find out about it all on my own, and then... Then..._

“Uh huh,” he said aloud. “Well. That does put a different spin on things, doesn’t it.”

“You’ve been there?” the smallest goblin said, startled and involuntarily.

“No,” Ren said. “The area carries a class XXXXX triple advisory against travel. Let me guess, the team you hired to fly overhead on broomsticks couldn’t see a thing, so you figured that whatever used to live there had died out on its own and that you’d take advantage of the fact that no one else seems to have noticed?’

The goblins looked sour, but were obviously more than willing to accept the obvious, and less damning, re-interpretation of events. Ren held up the card and set it alight.

“I’ll go in and clean it out for you,” he said coolly. “Before setting the wards, but I’ll need an extra few days to do the thorough job, and you _will_ pay me for it. My schedule’s booked pretty tightly right now, though, so I won’t be able to manage it till the holidays as I initially proposed.”

“An extra...” Shouts of protests roared out among the adjudicators.

“I also,” Ren cut everyone off loudly. “Want full rights on the bounties of whatever I kill.”

The goblins’ eyes narrowed. They stepped aside and conferred in rapid Gobbledegook.

_Mm. I thought that would perk you up. Think you're on top of things again, don't you - or that I'm bluffing and/or that I've misdiagnosed the site coordinates after all? Everyone knows, after all, that the kind of natives we're talking on in the particular area have that rather inconvenient immunity to death._

“Agreed,” the chief goblin said loudly. “We have no objections – as long as _you_ agree never to reveal the coordinates to anyone – and as long as you go in on your own. No outsiders.”

_And, coincidentally, no extra bodies or disappearances to explain away. Keep digging, Mr. Goblin. You're not doing yourself any favours._

“Do you not think the Masteries Board should have a say in the matter?" the head adjudicator demanded furiously. "You signed a contract, Master Cartwright, and not just with the goblins!"

“Sure,” Ren said easily. “Why not." He got to his feet and cast a _Sonorus_ again. "Can I have your permission, ladies and gents, to go in and clean out the primary spawning grounds of South America’s elder lethifold population before proceeding to the next step of the practical part of my exams? Turns out there's a little problem there, you see, in that the site of the remote vault system in Rio is set up smack in the middle of the relevant swamp system - well, under it - and while the inhabitants would undoubtedly make excellent guards for anyone choosing to deposit their money with the locals, I'm afraid that anyone traveling to the site to do their banking there in person after I've set the parameters might find the interest rates just a little too costly for their personal liking."

Stone silence fell.

* * *

 

“What?” Fudge choked. “ _What_?”

“It’s a nasty job, but someone really should take care of it, yeah?”

“Lethifolds,” Sirius repeated, and lunged. The chief goblin gurgled, his collar twisted tightly around his neck as his feet dangled three feet off the ground. “YOU WERE PLANNING ON DROPPING HIM ON TOP OF THE SPAWNING GROUNDS OF A COLONY OF ELDER LETHIFOLDS WITHOUT _TELLING_ HIM?”

“I’m sure he’d manage beautifully, Sirius,” Remus said. “UNTIL HE DIED! “ His canines appeared; he grabbed the closest goblin by the collar. “WHO HIRED YOU TO KILL HIM, YOU...”

“Professor Lupin,” Neil said. “Professor Black. That is _enough_.” He turned to the goblins. His own teeth were suddenly longer. And wetter, and sharper, and decidedly unfriendly looking.  “Well?”

“It’s okay, Gramps,” Ren reassured him. “They obviously didn’t know.” That, he knew – everyone knew – was a big fat lie, but in the interests of diplomacy and forestalling another war besides the one he'd traveled so far to prevent, he was willing to let it go. Publicly, at least. “Lethifolds are invisible, remember?”

 “Uh huh,” was all Neil said, and turned to the crowds, arms folded. “Anyone here have any objections to Ren taking a few days to clear out the swamps?’

Mutters sounded.

“We cannot support this,” one of the visiting South American representatives of the ICW said loudly. “Areas such as that are classified XXXXX for a reason. International Master or not, it would be nothing short of suicide.” He glared at the goblins. "I hereby call an emergency vote of all members of the Confederation present and qualified to act as proxies: that is, that the proposed exam site be stricken from the Master Cartwright's contract, regardless of signature and agreement, and that it be replaced by the International Masteries Board with a reasonable and viable alternative."

Cheers and cries of agreement arose from all corners at that... Tamsin looked as if she was about to burst into tears again, of obvious relief this time.

“I’m sorry, Master Cartwright,” the chief adjudicator said when the crowd had calmed a little. “As our esteemed colleague said... We can’t associate ourselves with such an endeavor. One man, however skilled... If you choose to go in, we can’t stop you, but you’ll have to go in as an independent hire of Gringotts. If you choose to decline the option, we will, under these circumstances, assign you another exam site. This is meant to be a test of your skill, after all: difficult, yes, but not as impossible as all that."

 “He won’t be alone,” Bill Weasley said. Every eye turned to him. “If he goes, I’ll be going with him.”

“What?” Percy's voice was loud and alarmed. "Bill, no!"

“I'm an employee of Gringotts,” Bill said. “And as I was scheduled to go onsite again as a team representative tomorrow, don't qualify as an outsider. And he'll need back up."

“You’ve only cast a successful Patronus once, Weasley,” the chief goblin snapped. “And that was less than an hour ago. So... No.”

“No?” Bill examined his wand. “Huh. Well... Maybe if I can manage it twice? Happy thoughts, happy thoughts... Mm. Oop. Got it. Lethifolds... Mum... Mum... Lethifolds... Lethifolds folding Mum...  EXPECTO PATRONUM!”

And a second gigantic black panther veritably slunk from his wand, teeth bared, hackles raised, eyes glowing. It prowled about, coming over to sniff at Ren. It was so solid he could practically feel the heat from its breath.

“Nice,” Ren said appreciatively, petting it. Its raspy purr filled the hall. A wicked, hissing laugh sounded in the back of his mind. “Aren’t you the pretty one. Mm? Yeah? Okay. Karrash and Mola approve,” he said to Bill. “And look forward to the hunt.”

“Karrash and Mola?”

“My dragons.”

“They have names now?” Neil said, interested. “Really?”

“I’ll want to be paid, of course,” Bill cut him off. “Since it’s not technically my specialty, and I’ll be risking my life and all.”

“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?" The goblin chief raised his voice. "You are under contract, Weasley: a magically binding contract, and we are not in the habit of renting out our bound assets!”

_Hook, line and sinker._

“New deal," Ren said. His voice cut through the clamour again like a hot knife through butter. "Weasley and I go in; we clear the place out... And if we both come out alive... You sign over his contract to me."

“WHAT?”

Bill turned slowly and stared at him.

“You can’t release him from his contract,” Ren said to the goblins. ”As you said; he’s magically bound. You can sign that contract over to someone else though – a subcontractor.”

“What would you do with him? He’s nothing but a junior curse-breaker!.”

“He is. And as for what I’d do with him... That’s my business. It’ll come out though, once the paperwork is filed, so what the hell. I want him as an apprentice.”

“A.... What?”

“You heard me. He’s young, strong, bright and quite extraordinarily talented, even without the dubious benefits of the curses I removed from him last night. I won’t promise him three International Masteries by the time he’s thirty, but I’ll teach him as much as I know as he’s inclined to absorb within the standard seven years, in the field of his choice – Warding, Dueling or DADA. After that... His skills will be his to market.”

“Holy Christ,” Bill said blankly. “Are you _serious_?”

_Wait for it..._

“Curse?” The chief goblin stilled. “He has... had... a curse on him?”

“A combination of them,” Ren lied blithely. “Subtle ones. Been there for quite a long time, too; from the timing, I’m guessing he picked them up his first time in the field, or maybe even earlier, on one of the school trips sponsored by certain advanced classes here at Hogwarts. What can you do. One pyramid, one hieroglyph brushed the wrong way, and bam. You’re some ancient wizard’s unwitting bitch. These ones gave him a leg, or rather, an eye up, for divining magics, but there were definite drawbacks too. They’re gone now, though, as indicated by Bagheera there.” He tilted his head. “Can’t be expected to cast a Patronus with that kind of baggage on your soul, can you?”

“Bag... Heera?”  
  
“The panther. Rudyard Kipling? ‘The Jungle Book?’” He sighed as blank stares met him from all sides. “Honestly, you _people_! I know you think it’s rich coming from an American, and I know there’s the Statute of Secrecy and all, but still. It wouldn’t kill you to read a book now and again, you know. No, wait. It’s the song, isn’t it? If you find out/ you can live without it/ you go along/not thinkin’ about it...” he hummed. “Very wizarding, that, _and_ stupid, and relevant regardless of generation. Maybe you should add it to the Muggle Studies curriculum, Professor Burbage?”

A giggle sounded from Hermione Granger's direction –and a loud, quickly stifled guffaw from, again of all people, Lucius Malfoy. Ren was more distracted than ever. The blue eyes, as he turned back, were shining with genuine mirth and appreciation. “So?”

“No fee, the bounties on whatever you recover,” the chief goblin said craftily. “And Weasley’s contract. If he, or you, doesn’t survive – no fee and no bounties paid out to you or your heirs, and, obviously, no transfer of contract.”

 “Deal.” They clasped hands.

“But... The exam!” one of the adjudicators protested. “We moved up the schedule for a reason, you know? We're not going to be available as a group again till next summer!"

A sniffle sounded from the Hufflepuff table at that... Another sounded, and another, gradually increasing in volume till it was impossible to ignore... Not a few of the visitors looked decidedly alarmed. Given the source, Ren was decidedly less so, but that being said...

“There there,” he said bracingly as he strode over to Hufflepuff Table. “There there. What is it?”

“I don’t _like_ lethifolds!” Sally-Ann Perks wailed dramatically and weepily. “They _scare_ me! I’m only first year, so I haven’t had my Boggart test with Professor Lupin yet, but if I did, it would be a lethifold; I just _know_ it! I know it might put your exam off till the new fiscal year, and that’ll  probably cost you a lot of extra money, but... Please, Master Cartwright, you have to save us!”

Beside her, Hannah Abbott's eyes gleamed demurely beneath her lidded eyes as she patted her year-mate's shoulder... Ren's lips twitched fondly as he realized exactly what his youngest 'Puffs were up to.

“Aw. Don’t worry, darlin’.” He sat on the hastily cleared bench beside her. Sally-Ann promptly climbed into his lap and sniffled into his shoulder. It would have looked ridiculous with any of the other students, but the little first year was the smallest student at Hogwarts – smaller even than Branwen Driscoll. It could have been a disadvantage, but she knew how to work it, never mind those pigtails and dewy cornflower eyes. Even Snape wasn’t immune. “I will. And don’t you worry about the other. It’s just a test, right? Just a test, and just money. I’ll come up with the funds somehow, and in the meantime... You’re way more important.”

“But it’s five thousand _galleons_!” She brightened, or rather gleamed, through her sniffles. “Maybe Professor Lupin will lend you the money? He’s got lots now, and he knows all about nightmares and boggarts and the importance of ridding the world of nightmares besides!”

“I couldn’t ask him to do that, Sally-Ann. We’re friends, yes, but recent friends. Don’t worry about it. I’m only thirty, I’ve got lots of time to work up the necessary.”

“Oh for... He’s a _Longbottom_ , for Merlin’s sake!” Zacharias Smith said loudly. “They own half of bloody Britain n... OW!”

“He’s not a Longbottom,” Ernie MacMillan said in his loftiest, primmest tones. “He’s a Cartwright. If you had any kind of breeding at all, Smith, you’d know you don’t go hitting up your relatives for that kind of money, no matter how fond they are of you. Maybe _especially_ if they’re that fond of you.”

 “I have breeding! I can trace my lineage right back to Helga Hufflepuff herself, you... OW! Sod _off_ , Carpenter!”

 “We could ask him for you,” Emily Carpenter suggested to Ren, wiping the blood off of her knuckles as Smith clutched his just-healed nose again, and quite as if (the very amused) Remus weren’t standing right _there_. “Or we could get the Ravenclaws to write up a proposal, and form a committee to present it! I can’t be involved: asking for that kind of funding, even on someone else’s behalf, would be a bit crass after he saved my mam from her lifetime of torment and pain, but...” She brightened. “Ooh, I know! We can all pitch in our pocket money! You’ve got paper there, Ced, here, let’s send it around, and everybody can pledge a bit, and it won’t be enough, but we could do a fundraiser maybe, or...”

“That won’t be necessary,” Lucius Malfoy said. Again, Ren noticed his lips twitching, most uncharacteristically. “House Malfoy will be more than happy to finance you, Master Cartwright, should it prove necessary.”

“It is? I mean... It will?"

“Of course. Though...” He looked around rather austerely and lifted his voice. “I would hope that there are none of us, regardless of nation, who are so hardened to the sensibilities and fears of our children that we are willing to ignore them in the name of bureaucracy?”

Gentle, chiding, perfectly reproving... The elegant hands folded precisely, if not-quite-threateningly, over the top of the walking stick that held his wand...

 _Okay. I_ have _to look him up. This is_ not _the Lucius Malfoy I knew._

“Of course not!” Fudge looked affronted and panicked and excited by the possibilities all at once. “Our children are the future! No backing will be necessary, will there?”

The adjudicators glared. Sally-Ann sniffled hopefully, her pigtails perking noticeably. Hannah poked her warningly under the table. She moderated, minimally.

“Just imagine,” she said dreamily (and loudly). “ A world without werewolves – no offense, Em –“

“None taken.” Emily patted her shoulder. “I quite prefer the updated version myself.”

“ _Or_ lethifolds!”

“It won’t get rid of all the lethifolds,” Ren warned them. “For the record. Just their ability to breed.”

“Uh?”

“They’re like salmon,” he explained. “They always come back to the same spot to spawn. All of them.”

‘Won’t they just find another place?’

“Oh probably. But they only reproduce every couple hundred years, so it’ll give us time to hunt down prime spots and ward against them coming in.”

“How many are there in the specified area at any given point?” a Ravenclaw called.

“Dunno. I’ve never been before. Gramps has though, I think, on a couple of his tropical bulb-hunting expeditions. Gramps?”

“A lot,” Neil said succinctly. “Normally I’d say you wouldn’t have anything to worry about because they only go after sleeping victims, but I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t rely on that when there are babies of any sort involved. Are you absolutely sure about this, Ren? You know I support you unconditionally, but no one's going to think a thing of it if you decline the option in favour of a more appropriate location."

“Gotta be done,” Ren said briskly, and setting the girl down, patted her head, handed her an apple from the bowl and rose to his feet. “Thanks for the offer, Malfoy. I'll be sure to come knocking if it becomes necessary.” He dug into a pocket, pulling out a bundle of slips and peeling off four. “In the meantime... In appreciation?”

“What are they?” Draco didn’t quite bounce as his father examined the offering.

“You are a generous man, Master Cartwright,” was all Lucius said. “I had bought tickets already, of course, but as these rows are strictly on reserve for distribution by the contestants....” Draco whooped as he processed.

“FRONT ROW SEATS TO THE GLOBAL INVITATIONALS? AHHHHHHHHHH!”

“I’d originally planned to give them to Harry and Neville,”  Ren explained. “And Cousin Augusta, but unfortunately, they have other plans. There’s an extra there for a friend.”

‘AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Draco,” his father said indulgently. “Please. Do try to remember that you are a Malfoy?”

“Oh come _on_! Like you aren’t squealing like a baby peacock inside?”

“Of course I am. The key word there, though, is ‘inside’. My wife will be most appreciative, Master Cartwright – and will be most put out with me if I do not invite you to tea in the next week or so to thank you in person. May we send an owl?”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Ren said. The adjudicators broke apart.

“We have reached a compromise,” they announced. He waited.

“We are willing to postpone today’s events in Alexandria till the original proposed dates of your practicals a month from now,” the chief adjudicator said. “In light of our own necessary and official investigation into the purported magical changes in the water there. In the meantime, Master Cartwright... The goblins have offered to transport you to the new site in South America this afternoon –on their knut - so that you might assess the locale yourself, and present both Gringotts and the ICW with a more refined estimate on if it is in fact possible, and if so, how long it might take you, to clear out, or at least contain, the spawning grounds before initiating the formal construction of the security system in Rio.”

“Does that mean that you’re planning on paying him for his services if he succeeds?” Terence Higgs inquired from Slytherin Table. “As an International DADA expert?”

“The deal with the goblins has already been struck, Mr...”

“Higgs. And that’s fine for the goblins, but if he’s got to present the ICW with an estimate, that brings them into the contractual picture, doesn’t it? Never mind that the Americans might be a bit put off by the fact that you gave Professor Lupin here the International Cross of Service and accompanying monetary grant for publishing a recipe that he didn’t even invent while completely ignoring Master Cartwright’s potential contribution and actual risk of life and limb for single-handedly emptying the world’s laundry basket of invisible carnivorous pillowcases.”

There was a pause.

“One must admire,” Fudge said, and he didn’t sound like he admired it at all - "your ability, Master Cartwright, to inspire such loyal supporters, regardless of House, after less than a month here at Hogwarts.”

“Lethifolds don’t care what House you’re in,” Terence said bluntly. “And he’s proved himself to all of us, hasn’t he?”

“He... Has?”

“Sure. You don’t know what I’m talking on, stop by the infirmary. Ask for Jax King. Man might wear gold and black, but as far as we Snakes are concerned... His work there, and for free no less, gives him the right to visit our common room anytime, even if the Headmaster weren’t his grandfather.”

 “Nice try, Higgs,” Rhodes said. “He’s still ours.”

“Oh, wring out your knickers already, Rhodes, will you?” Rhonda Fawley said in disgust. “He’s got two wands, doesn’t he, and they’re powered by mated Hornies besides. There’s more than enough power there to go around.”

“MISS _FAWLEY_!”

“There, there, Professor Snape. And on that note,” the Headmaster said. “As a not entirely-uninterested and unbiased party...”

“There will be no financial penalties incurred for any delay of events should the clean-up and/or containment go beyond the end of the fiscal year,” the Chief Adjudicator said not-entirely-begrudgingly. “As long as Saturday’s duel takes place as scheduled. Too, if Master Cartwright reports, after his initial assessment this afternoon, that the job is impossible, another site will be assigned him without prejudice."

“Woot!” Ren cheered. The Hufflepuffs roared in approval. Sally-Anne Perks beamed smugly as everyone at the table (and Professor Sprout from up front) gave her a discreet thumbs up. “So... We’re done here today?”

“Save for that pesky little reconnaissance mission, yes,” Amelia Bones said dryly. “Is there anything that the Ministry can provide you to facilitate things there, Master Cartwright?”

“I’m good.” Ren stood and stretched. His clothes abruptly disappeared, leaving only the chimaera-hide leathers. “Well, Weasley? Shall we?”

“You did hear me yesterday when I told you I’m pants on a broom, right?” Bill said doubtfully, as he too rose. All around him, the Slytherins stood to pat him bracingly on the back. “I’m presuming we’re going in by air?”

“We are, and it doesn’t matter. You’ll be riding behind me, and all you’ll have to do is smile and wave and keep the Patronuses coming.” Ren transfigured a napkin into a bag, and, casting an extension charm on it, began filling it with sausage. “Here. Pass this around, would... Excellent. Fill ‘er up, kids. Yes, all of you, from all the tables. They’re not raw, succulent man-flesh, but Patronuses aside, they’ll do to distract in a pinch.”

“Lethifolds like bangers?” a Ravenclaw asked as the tables obliged. “Really?”

“Everybody likes bangers. Everybody, everything, everywhere.” He nicked one from a passing plate and bit into it in demonstration. “Mm. Awesome. Professor Snape, can I have a word before we head out?”

“Of course,” he said, startled. Ren cast the warding box around them.

“Tamsin Applebee,” he said without preamble as the Potions professor raised an eyebrow at him inquiringly. “She picked up on the goblins’ thoughts when she bumped into one in the lunch-line. That’s how she knew.”

“That’s impossible, Potter. Goblins are immune to legilimency.”

“It's Cartwright. And that’s what I thought. I thought maybe it’s different here, but it’s not. I checked, just now. Tinfoil hats, the lot of them, but somehow she got through. Gets through. She’s got a little extra something-something; I don’t know what, but I’ll tell you what she _hasn’t_ got yet – decent Occlumency shields. And she’s in training at St. Mungo’s. Has been since last summer, and she’s lucked out so far, but if somebody official picks up on what she can do, particularly with another war coming on...”

Snape’s face turned grim.

“I will do what I can,” he said.

“You do that.” Ren’s gaze hardened. “Be warned, Snape. I know how it’s done now myself, and I'll be keeping an eye out. If I get even a _hint_ that you’re training her up the way you pretended to train me...”

A second of real, never-quite-abandoned dislike flared between the two of them.

“I am not the man I was then,” Snape said precisely. “And I was never the man you assumed I was. I had thought we had determined that?”

“Yeah, well,” the former Harry Potter said bluntly, “ _I’m_ the same person I’ve always been. We’ve determined that too, haven’t we, and let me tell you something else, Severus Snape. If you – any interpretation of you, past or present - rapes that girl’s mind the way you raped mine when I was her age, there won’t be enough of you left, body or soul, to make it back anywhere, even Hell. You’ll have made number one on my shit list: my all-time, all-world, all- _universe_ shit list, and I... I will _smear_ you. And that’s not just a promise; that’s a vow.”

“I did not...”

“Save it.” He made a quick, choppy gesture. The warding box disappeared. Ren turned away. His own expression, had he been able to see it, was not sweet and pleasant at all. Even the goblins drew back a little at the sight.

“Well, Weasley?”

“I’m ready,” Bill hefted the sack of sausage. He’d spelled his hair back into a neat, slick ponytail, and someone- McGonagall, probably – had transfigured his clothes into skin-tight versions of the originals. Ren hauled out his broom from an invisible pocket and brought it up to full size, tapping it with a wand. It promptly grew three feet in length, and sprouted an extra pair of foot rests.

“Up you get. We’ll meet you at Gringotts,” he said to the goblins. “You have the portkey there, I presume?”

The goblins nodded in tandem. Ren swung onto the broom as Bill settled behind him.

“One thing,” Bill said into his ear.

“Yeah?”

“If I fall off this thing, and get eaten... I’m assigning you to Charles-sitting duty. In perpetuity, understand?”

“You’re not going to fall off,” Ren said. “Ask Smith there. This thing has enough sticking charms on it to pass as a glue factory.” He spun towards the door. As he did, Lucius Malfoy bowed gracefully to him... Ren couldn’t resist. He paused the broom, and looked the man straight in the eye.

_“Now Rann the Kite brings home the night/ That Mang the Bat sets free/The herds are shut in byre and hut/For loosed till dawn are we...”_

And sticking charms or no, Ren Cartwright nearly fell off said broom as Lucius Malfoy – _Lucius Malfoy_ – threw back his head and laughed in sheer and unmistakable delight.

“ _This is the hour of pride and power,”_ he recited back, his voice ringing bright as a clarion bell _. “Talon and tush and claw/Oh, hear the call!—Good hunting all/That keep the Jungle Law!”_

“Oh for... _Really_ , Father?” Draco looked most humiliated as he buried his face in his hands. “ _Must_ you? _Really_?”

“Yes,” his father said heartlessly. “I must. I absolutely, _absolutely_ must. ‘Better he' – or rather you -" he quoted again. "'Should be bruised from head to foot by me who loves you than you should come to harm through ignorance.’ Wednesday next, Cartwright? Four o’ clock?”

“Sure thing,” Ren said, and cast him one last most peculiar look over his shoulder as he sped, Bill clutching at him and gurgling only slightly in panic, out of the Great Hall and through the front doors of the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT UP: THE DUEL!!!


	13. Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! There is a reason this chapter took six weeks - not only is it THE pivotal turning point in the series (of which there are now three books) but it's freaking 25 000 words. 
> 
> That being said: it takes place over two days - Friday (the day before Ren's dueling exam) and Saturday (the day of the exam). PLEASE NOTE: the chapter starts on Saturday, and flashes back to Friday. The sections on Saturday are in regular font, the flashbacks to Friday are in bold/italic.
> 
> All I can say is that I really really love you all, and I really, REALLY hope you love this chapter. xoxoxo Blue Maple

 

**_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_ **

**_Saturday, November 22nd, 1991_ **

**_8:15 A.M._ **

The morning sky over Hogwarts  was not its typically seasonal dull, dark grey, but a soft, near-translucent mother of pearl **.** The vast, sprawling canopy of dark green spruce and fir that comprised the overview of the Forbidden Forest was dusted with fresh crisp snow, but there was not a flake to be seen on the ground, so thickly was it covered with the brightly and gaudily attired teeming hordes. Ren leaned, arms folded and braced on the curved stone wall at the very top of the Astronomy Tower, soft light brown hair ruffling slightly as the feathers of a thrush (or perhaps a hummingbird), in the bitterly chill wind... He didn't feel it, of course; the runes on his wrists were keeping him toasty warm from top to toe even without the benefit of the dark blue Muggle parka, scarf and gloves he wore over his shining and buffed chimaera hide leathers.

"Pup?"

"Hey, Sirius." Ren turned his head away from the view below as his father, Marauders' Map in hand, slipped through the great wooden door leading to the interior of the Astronomy Tower. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be lining up at the hat to draw your number right about now?"

"I'm happy to take whatever's left. We're all going to end up sprawled on our arses at your feet anyway, no matter the order we have a go at you, so what does it matter?" He came over and peered over the edge. "Bugger me, but that's a great bloody lot of people, innit?"

"Mm," Ren agreed, and looked around. 'Where's Remus got to?"

"He's off sicking up."

" _What_? Really?"

"No, pup. I'm projecting. I do that, yeah?" Sirius turned his head to face the man before him and examined him judiciously. "You nervous?"

"Nah. Beats the aerial view over Brazil, anyway."

"Yeah. Still no chance you'll share the fond memories? We've got that nice pensieve up in Neil's office; it's not like Dumbles is going to come back for it anytime soon.'

Ren just reached into his coat pocket, extracted a flask of hot cocoa, and, unscrewing it, took a deep swig. Sirius took it as offered, his own long black hair whipping about his thin face, and followed suit.

"If Remus is sicking up," he said. "It's with worry. You haven't said a word on any of it since you and Bill got back last night, and not to project again, but my Mind Healer would not consider that a sign that you're properly processing and perspectivating whatever happened there."

_"Perspectivating?"_

Sirius eyeballed him dourly. Ren tucked the flask away. Below, the vast round shimmering dome of the temporary dueling stadium turned a rich blue. As if on cue, the enormous doors, again at each point of the compass, slid back, and the hordes began to flow in to seat themselves. The noise was absolutely phenomenal. Ren watched for a long moment, his one hand still in his pocket, warmed by the hot sweet drink within, while, in his mind's eye, the teeming crowds below him shifted and shimmered, and took on the shape of...

* * *

 

**Brazil**

**The Day Before**

**Friday, November 21st, 1991**

**_"Keep your eyes closed, honey boy, " Ren said. Bill Weasley, seated behind him, clutched frantically  at Ren's leg as he stood balanced on the elongated broomstick,  stripped to the waist again and feet braced lightly on the half-handspan's worth of  polished wood that was all that lay between the two men and the ghastly, teeming landscape below. "That's all you have to do. All I want you to do. All I need you to do. You just keep your eyes closed and hang onto me. We're almost done, and you're doing great. We're almost done,  Billy, and once I place this one last sequence we can pull the trigger and get the hell out, forever." Bill didn't respond, just turned his head and leaned over, eyes tightly closed as he retched miserably again and again._ **

**_"I'm going to kill them," he said thinly and hysterically as he pressed his forehead to Ren's thigh. "Every fucking_** **one _of them. I'm going to wipe out the entire goddamn_ race**, **_the little fu..." He retched again, not from  his fear, but from the absolute inability of his brain to process the scene below with anything even close to visual equanimity. Ren kept his own eyes fixed firmly ahead of him as not two, but an army of  five_ hundred _massive Horntail Patronuses, each manifesting from a single facet of the the charmed prismatic crystal currently affixed to the end of his right hand wand, circled beneath them, spaced at precise intervals as screaming, rearing, flame-throwing chessmen around the perimeters of_ the _original spawning grounds of South and Central America's  elder, middle-aged, young adult, teenaged, child,_ and _infant lethifold populations. Within the perimeter, driven into the interior of the vast swamp system, inasmuch as there was any room there to drive them into..._**

**_Lethifolds, despite the nominal and popular descriptive, weren't precisely invisible. They were the color of shadow, of the bloated, rotting corpse of twilight perpetually caught in the final moment between the death of dusk and the birth of full midnight. In the furthest depths of this lush and glad-eyed stinking jungle, the shadows adopted an additional sickly green and gangrenous tint that was, to the reborn wizard's judicious and firmly averted eyes, and as pertained to the already quite sufficient and literally nauseating view..._ **

**_Excessive._ **

**_Ren shifted his weight a bit. The broomstick slid through the slick, humid air as if greased. "One more, Billy. We're almost in position. I just have to set the last sequence and then we're out of here. One more and we can go home, and it'll all be over."_ **

**_Bill couldn't answer. He was weeping wretchedly now in between helpless, convulsive bouts of active nausea: so sick he could barely breathe.  It wasn't his fear of heights, or his ineptness in flight, oh no. It wasn't fear at all. It was the_ ** **two hundred bloody buggering square kilometers _of wall-to-wall,  just-caught-out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye, shifting and rustling, not-quite invisible, visually distorted and mentally disorienting unrelenting_ lethifold. _They teemed, they writhed, they seethed ... If there was a properly descriptive word there, Ren didn't know it, and didn't want to. He just flexed his knees slightly again, turning the broom as he aimed his left-hand wand. The tip of this one was set not with a prism, but with a whisper-fine needle tip of hardest diamond. His second closed hand, yet holding the right-hand wand, rested yet on Bill's sweating, damp head._**

 **_Ren closed his eyes, fixing the single image of his target in his mind's eye, and rubbed slow soothing circles with his knuckles even as he began to chant.  The diamond needle tip shot from the end of the wand, yet linked by a near-invisible thread of pure white light: light as white as the sprawling acres of ghostly flame sprayed as spittle from his infuriated, no, purely_ ** **offended, _army of winged guardians. The threaded needle wound its way down, down, down through the foliage, weaving and ducking deftly until it slammed into its target - a tiny patch of clear bark amid a tangle of carnivorous sword vine that veritably strangled its host of a huge, ancient tree. Ren couldn't see the patch, or the fact that it landed precisely, but he_ felt _the threaded needle etching a mirrored image of the last of the rune sequences he'd inscribed on his arms and torso during the night, all in preparation for the necessary events of the day. Even as the final rune was successfully inscribed in the bark, the equivalent rune on Ren's left collarbone disappeared, signaling its successful transference-to-target and the completion of the fence surrounding the vast expanse of swamp below.  Once sufficiently powered, the activated fence would  automatically trigger, at underwritten intervals, the very particular series of  spells  woven in and amongst the protective parameters - the spells that, in his last life, Harry Potter and a good three countries' worth of International Warders and Spellcrafters had spent an entire year devising and prepping in order to accomplish exactly what Ren was about to do now._**

**_It hadn't been a one-man job then, not while they were still adapting the magics, mapping out the area and, of course, without the help of two of the most powerful wands in any world's history, but with all the research done, the spellwork readied, and the specific wands again... Even all the years later, Ren had found the finest and smallest details of the procedures and particulars impossible to forget._ **

**_The results, after all, had been so spectacularly_ ** **memorable.**

**_Happily,  the area here was precisely the same, geographically speaking, as the spawning grounds back in Harry Potter's world. The reconnaissance mission the previous afternoon hadn't been so much about checking out the lethifolds themselves, but confirmation of the  particulars of the topical geography that surrounded them. What hadn't made things easier was that little-known fact that lethifolds, while quite content to lay each other as flat and filthy as the sheets they resembled at every given opportunity, only bred once every two hundred years, and that when they finally managed it... They did it in groups. Or rather... Group. 'Orgy' didn't even begin to describe it, and it had been quite revolting enough when Harry's team had gone in in 2078, at the peak of their off season._ **

**_Lethifolds bred once every two hundred years. As a group. They took their time about the rest, though. The gestational period, after conception, was just over  thirteen years. It hadn't taken Ren more than ten seconds after viewing the contents of Tamsin Applebee's near-unnaturally precise mind to do the math there. Any mass orgy involving the locals that had taken place during the summer of 1978 - a hundred years before the peak of their following off-season in 2078 - would perforce produce the fruit of its last indulgences in the late fall and early winter of 1991._ **

**_The bloody buggering bollocking goblins, in other words, had had the absolutely_ ** **fantastic _good luck to be offered a contract of assassination on a particular would-be-International Warder right smack in the middle of the month that the entire greater South and Central American lethifold population was scheduled to hold its bicentennial family reunion-slash-birthing party._**

* * *

"Is there anything you need to do before we head down?" Sirius asked. Ren blinked, once, mental eye refocusing as he examined his father. He didn't seem upset or agitated; rather eerily calm, actually... The reborn wizard wasn't at all sure it was a good sign.

"You okay?" he asked. "Only you seem kind of..." He waved a vague hand. "Unnervous."

"' _Unnervous_ '?" Sirius barked with laughter at that. "And you're hounding me for 'projectivating'?"

"Guess I get it from you after all," Ren agreed. "Seriously, Sirius... And yes, I see what you did there..." The hound in question smirked at him. His son rolled his eyes. "Why aren't you basketcasing?"

The smirk turned to a sigh - not a troubled or worried one, but one of affectionate, even slightly humorous, resignation.

"Don't take this the wrong way, pup, but I don't have a whole lot of concern on how things are going to go today. You walked, or rather flew, into Lethifold Land not once, but twice in the last two days, and came out without so much as a missing toenail. The fact that you won't tell any of us what happened is actually a bit reassuring if you think about it, it means it was bad enough for you to want to protect us, and you still handled it, twice again, so..." He lifted a thin shoulder under his thick winter cloak. "Somehow, I'm not too worried on how you'll handle a few dozen duelists who'll have the onsite supervision of  half the bloody ICW to ensure they play fair.' He pushed his wildly windblown and straggly hair back, and scrubbed at his reddened nose with one thin, hard, still somehow paw-like hand.

"It's not that I'm not going to tell you what happened," Ren said.  "I'll even show you the memory after this is all over. I just have a bit of a point I want to make with it first, and it requires an adequate number of people to make the point _to_.'

"The goblins bothering you for details yet?"

Ren's lips quirked a little at that, rather sourly.

"No," he said, and that was all. He pushed himself up from the wall. "No, I don't need anything else, I don't think. Go on ahead, now. I'll meet you down there."

Sirius nodded, surprisingly docilely, and leaned in to offer him a breathtaking, bony hug. Ren hugged him back.

"I love you, Padfoot," he said. "You know that, right?"

"I love you too, kiddo," his father said. "Always."

Ren watched as Sirius slipped around the door, and turned to look out over the snow-dusted canopy again.

* * *

_" **All done, Billy." Ren twisted and slid down to a sitting position on the broom, not facing ahead, but facing the young man behind him as he wrapped him up tightly and reassuringly, one wand still in each hand. "We're golden. You just hang onto me, baby boy. We're almost out of it. I'm just going to take us behind that rock there, see: out of eyeshot of the worst of this so that we can rest up a bit, and then we'll have a bit of fun, mm? Trust me, the view you're about to get will solve your Patronus issues for the rest of your life, and you won't even have to bring your bloody mum into it."**_

**_He maneuvered deftly... Ten minutes later, they were landing neatly behind the jagged lip of a rocky outcrop. Ren eased Bill off the broom and into a crumpled sitting position, not letting him go for a minute as he settled him half in his lap and rubbed his shaking back with both hands._ **

**_"There we go," he murmured. "There we go. And here we are. Safe and sound. Shh, Bill. I've got you, yeah?" He hugged him convulsively, till Bill nearly gagged again. "Christ, you_ ** **Weasleys. _So fucking brave, every one of you."_**

**_"I haven't done anything but puke and cry." Bill wiped his eyes, struggling up just enough to slip off his lap and onto the rock surface, though yet pressed shoulder-to-shoulder and thigh to thigh for reassurance.  "Not when we came in yesterday afternoon, and not again when we came back this morning." Ren just tilted his chin toward him and wiped the lean freckled cheeks with the palm of one hand, following it up with a light kiss on the nose... He couldn't help himself. The kid was, after all, a kid: not yet twenty one, and he... No matter the body, no matter the appearance... He was still a hundred thirty nine where and when it counted. Bill didn't even appear to process the gesture, much less the dichotomy, much less in objection._ **

**_"You  puked and cried yesterday," Ren reminded him. "But you knew what was waiting when we came back today and you came anyway, and without so much as the option of a blindfold."_ **

**_"Deal was  that we both make it out alive. That means we both have - had - to go in, with proof of my presence established through both of our pensieved visuals. If I'd stayed back, I'd yet be stuck with that fucking contract even if you survived this, and as long as I'm stuck with that fucking contract, the magics that bind me won't allow me to kill every last one of the little fuckers who set you up here, because they'll still be my fucking_ ** **employers _, and I'm magically bound to serve their interests." Slowly, slowly, Bill recovered his equilibrium. "You do realize, don't you, that this isn't actually the site they've chosen for the remote vault system? The portkey scheduled to take us there... It would have diverted you here, and the rest of the party to the pre-arranged area. You'd have disappeared enroute, landed right here in the middle of all this, nobody would ever have known what happened to you... Unfortunate, but weird things can happen when long distance portkeys are involved."_**

**_"Mm. I did realize, yes. I expect the plan was a little more refined than that when it comes right down to it; I have quite a few friends, never mind family members in positions to demand rather extremely thorough inquiries, but in the end, I don't suppose it would have made any difference to me. I'd still be so very, very dead, after all." Ren flipped his wands idly. "How do you think they'll react when they realize I swapped out the portkey they were going to provide us with this morning?"_ **

**_"Huh?"_ **

**_"The one they gave us for the reconnaissance mission yesterday was legit. They wanted us to be able to come back and tell them if we were going to give it a shot so they'd have witnesses to the fact that they weren't responsible for our final decision after we kicked it. So the portkey sent us right where we demanded... A quarter mile above the canopy. The portkey we used this morning, though, was set to drop us off on the ground. I figured they might try something like that, so I went back and swapped it out for one that I made myself, last night, after hours."_ **

**_"How the buggery fuck did you manage_ ** **that _? It was stowed in the most secure level in the bank!"_**

**_"Mm. Yes, it was, wasn't it? That being said, their warding system really does need an upgrade. It's adequate enough for what it is, never mind the time and place, but I'm not from this time or place, am I?"_ **

**_"You left a note, didn't you," Bill accused. "You left them a bloody note!"_ **

**_"I sent an owl," Ren corrected. "With a note, scheduled to arrive in the office of the Head of Gringotts International fifteen minutes after we left and advising him that if the London branch wishes to hire me for that upgrade after we return today, I'll consider it, but only after they provide me with full disclosure on the bastards who hired them to off me."_ **

**_"You'd actually hire_ ** **on _with them? After all this?"_**

**_"No. I said that I'd consider it, not that I'd do it."_ **

**_"They'll never fall for that. Goblins know their loopholes. Trust me. I_ ** **know _."_**

 **_"They may know their loopholes," Ren agreed, "but I know every single password to every single ward on every single vault that the Ministry of Magic holds at the London branch. I may have told them that too, and changed a few to make my point. I didn't take anything of course, but Cornelius Fudge is going to be a little upset when he realizes that said Ministry of Magic no longer has the ability to fund its payroll._ ** **And _that the goblins have no idea how to reset the wards now preventing_ their _access."_**

 **_"You did not. You. Did._ ** **Not _!"_**

 **_"Mm. I'm not really quite as much of a genius as that.... But traveling in from a dimension that runs an effective hundred thirty years ahead of this one_ ** **does _give me a few extra advantages. I told you, didn't I, that Hermione Granger was Minister of Magic in my world? For ..." The reborn wizard squinted. "Fifty four years? There's no way in_ any _world that that woman would hold the position for that long without scheduling a security audit on the banks that hold an absolute monopoly on the funds used to run all of Great Britain. I might not have been an official International Warder there, but she still knew exactly what I could do, and she got me in on it. It was fun." He rolled his neck. "Almost as much fun, I daresay, as we're going to have next."'_**

 **_Bill just looked at him, troubled. "You're playing a dangerous game here, Cartwright," he said. "They very well might not be_ ** **able _to tell you who hired them. Never mind the triple Masteries and the potential Grandmastery in dueling,  you're Augusta Longbottom's cousin, and with Harry and Neville ostensibly under a Fidelius that everyone knows you cast, you can bet your tight little arse that everyone at least suspects, in turn, that you're Secret Keeper. The kind of person who'd be able to entice the goblins into taking that kind of contract out on someone like you - someone as frankly dangerous as you, with all those contacts you just mentioned, the Muggle Queen included... It would take quite a bit of enticing. And they'd make sure they covered their arses too, wouldn't they? Both sides would. Magical contracts wouldn't even touch the beginning of what would be required there."_**

 **_"I'm aware," was all Ren said. "I'm not expecting them to come back to me with any names. That's not really the point of the entire endeavor, is it? I just want to make them squirm a bit. Oh, and to make them understand that no matter what happens with this particular client of theirs, it_ ** **really _won't be a good idea to take on anyone else with the same agenda in the future. I know enough about goblins to know that they're defined by self-interest, and if I make the point now that I have the ability to hit them where it hurts, personally..." He shifted a bit. "How did Charlie react when you got home last night and told him where we went?" he asked abruptly._**

**_Bill considered that, and him._ **

**_'He's remembering a bit more. Not everything, he says, though he reckons that'll come in time... But he said he reckoned you wouldn't have taken a risk like that, specially with me along for the ride, if you hadn't already done it," he said. "This, I mean." He waved a finger in a small circle. "He reckoned that we'd done just what we did do, actually... Come in, checked out the lay of the land to make sure things were as you remembered them, and then come back to prepare whatever you needed. Said you had a saving people thing, yeah, but if there wasn't actually anyone in the middle of the swamp that needed rescuing, you'd likely go by the Auror book instead of off your white horse."_ **

**_"Yeah?"_ **

**_"Yeah."_ **

**_"And how are_ ** **you _doing with all of this?"_**

 **_"I'm really... Not sure?" Bill confessed. "I mean, it's all bloody weird, of course, and I still have lots of questions, but when it comes to you, as opposed to the details you're describing..." he frowned down at his hands. "I can't see through his eyes anymore. The other bloke... My double... He's gone.  But I still have all the memories and visuals he gave me, yeah? Places, and curse sites... And sometimes... More. Sometimes I've met a person or two that I could swear I've met before, or remembered. Not by their faces, or names, but through emotions. I reckon again on that level, one of those people who provoked the associated emotions must have been you. Pretty sure of it, actually. I_ ** **wasn't _sure till yesterday morning, when my Patronus went right to you for the cuddles. Like it knew you, and trusted you. And weirdly again, I don't have any problems with the idea that you're actually old under all this, or that you are who you say you are. I had more of a problem in the hospital seeing you light Ginny on fire because part of me knew, or thought I knew, what it meant, and the first thing I thought was 'bloody buggering dirty old man,' but you were_ eleven. _You just... even there, even then... You didn't come across like an eleven year old to me, 'specially the way you obviously did hit it off right off with Charles. Not like a little brother, but a real grown mate, straight up. An equal." Bill Weasley turned and looked at Ren again at that. His eyes were very blue, and  suddenly very shrewd. "You still haven't answered my question, by the way."_**

**_"What question is that?" Ren asked._ **

**_"My question on Charles. Why couldn't you do it?"_ **

* * *

Ren made his way slowly down the steps of the Astronomy Tower, hands stuffed in the pockets of his parka. The halls were quite deserted; there was not even a wisp of a ghost in sight. He made a slight detour as he reached the second floor staircase, stopping in to use the loo, and, after washing his hands, stuffed them back in his parka and continued on his way.  As he walked, he began to clear his mind - to slowly, deliberately and tranquilly tuck away all memories, all distracting thoughts, one by one by one. By the time he reached the front doors of the castle, his mind was quite, quite empty. He stopped for a moment, there in the middle of the deserted front hall, and closed his eyes lightly, and breathed.

When he opened his eyes again, the parka was gone. The scarf was gone. The wool gloves were gone, replaced by the paper-thin leather, half-fingered  duelist's equivalent. Ren stood in the hall before the closed front doors, and let his wands slide out of the holsters at his wrists, into his hands. They felt oddly silent and watchful, but in no way agitated, and the typical undercurrent of hissing humour was gone. He held them up to the light, checking them carefully for smudges or rough spots. There were none.

Ren approached the doors. As of their own volition, they swung open. He walked through quietly; they closed behind him. A path had been cleared down to the stadium. He followed it, wands still in his hands, arms loose by his sides. He approached the southern entrance. There were no stragglers around and about; this close to the top of the hour, everyone had already made haste to secure their seats, and to keep them by the most expedient means possible... By refusing to move.

Ren walked past the south entrance, and around the side of the dome. At the half-point precisely between the south and east entrances,  there was another smaller door. As he approached it, it slid open. There was a small flight of stairs in front of him; he climbed it and stopped at the top, closing his eyes and breathing again. He felt his own heart beating, steady and calm, and the blood rushing through his veins. Taking one more long, slow deep breath, he reached out to turn the handle on the final door before him. It turned easily under his fingers. He pushed it open and walked through, head up, shoulders relaxed and back. Again, the clamour was immense.

A huge, international-standard sized dueling circle rose out of the center of the enormous dome. It was surrounded by rising bleachers, separated from the dais by a transparent shield that would serve to protect the audience from misfired spells. Heads turned as Ren made his way up three steps and walked straight through the shield - it had been keyed to his magical signature - to the center of the circle. He appeared to look neither left nor right. As he moved to take formal position, his slim, hard body, clad in skin-tight black leather from ankle to collar to  wrist, seemed to cast off all physical restrictions imposed by bone or solid tissue, flowing instead as flesh become water.

Ren closed his eyes one final time. A soft, bright wind blew through his mind.

There was no need or requirement for introductions or formalities. A chime sounded in the sudden  silence,  signaling the top of the hour. Behind Ren, directly behind him, aimed directly at the back of his head, a bright purple arrow shot out of a random wand in the crowd. It passed straight through the shield; the owner's wand had been cleared and its master's signature registered as an official opponent. Ren didn't move, didn't turn around, only stood there and breathed, eyes still closed... The arrow slammed into the back of his head.

There was no blinding flash, no showy display of sound. The purple arrow didn't disappate, bounce or shatter. It didn't even seemed to disappear. It was just....  gone, as if had never existed. In its place, now tugged firmly and squarely over Ren Cartwright's soft, light brown hair was a  gold and black wool cap, complete with an awkwardly embroidered badger snoozing peacefully over his left, pierced eyebrow. Seated directly in front of him, halfway up the bleachers, Susan Bones clapped her hands over her mouth and let out an astonished, delighted squeak that echoed through the stadium. Ren opened his eyes, caught hers and offered her a tiny wink.

* * *

 

**_Bill sat behind Ren on the extended broom, now hovering, deep within the steaming, ripe maw of the jungle itself and (from the younger man's point of view) in most imprudent proximity to the runic fence. Ren raised his right-hand wand, and pointed  it directly at the central rune on the sequence on the tiny patch of bark on the tree.  He uttered a single word. Absolutely nothing happened._ **

**_"Huh." Ren examined the wand. "That's new."_ **

**_"Whuh," Bill Weasley said in alarm, with, the former Harry Potter thought, a really quite stunning lack of gorm.... His lips twitched fondly._ **

**_"Horntails," he explained. "Are extremely territorial. They're actually pretty snotty about the formalities there, I'm told. Karrash here..." He held up the wand. "Reckons since you're a native of this world and I'm not, that you should be the one to trigger the sequence that will rid your territory of the threat."_ **

**"What?"**

**_"Wand hand," Ren directed. Bill shifted so that he was encircling and clutching Ren's waist tightly with his left arm, and extended the right over the other man's shoulder, closing his fingers automatically around the Horntail wand as Ren turned and placed it in his palm. The wand seemed to hum and vibrate, and the flame within sparked brightly. Bill lifted it to examine it more closely... Ren grabbed his wrist._ **

**_"He's a little excited," he advised. "You don't want that end pointed at an eye when he blows. Here. No, there. That's it. Right there at the patch of bark. Eyes_ ** **right, _Weasley, that way lies madness and despair, and do you really want to start sicking up again?"_**

 **_"I want to see what_ ** **happens _!"_**

**_"You will. Trust me. You will. Only the fence covers two hundred square kilometers, doesn't it? We'll have more than enough time to get back up top before everything blows, and it's only the first step anyway. You're just flipping the switch; I'll still have to be the one to channel the magical current, and that's going to take both wands at full power and everything I've got personally besides."_ **

**_"That sounds painful. And dangerous."_ **

**_"Nah. My core's totally ripped, mate. And I'm not talking power levels anyway, I'm talking practiced control."_ **

**_"Alright. Though...  Is it going to be really gross?"_ **

**_"Oh_ ** **yeah." _It was spoken with utter relish._**

**_"Brilliant. Okay, what's the word again?"_ **

**_"Go."_ **

**_"Yeah, I will, but you have to tell me the word first."_ **

**_"'Go' is the word, you moron."_ **

**_"Ah. Alright then." Bill squinted and aimed ever more carefully. "Ready...Steady..."_ **

* * *

 

"GOGOGOGOGOGOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The frenzied crowds roared. Seated on the south side of the stadium, Remus Lupin sat back, arms folded across his chest, brown eyes glued to his son, his  knuckles pressed hard against  the compressed line of his lips. Sirius sat beside him, fists clenched as he leaned forward till he was practically bent double. He nearly shot out of his seat in his excitement as the left half of  the circular dais flexed and shattered under Ren's feet, reshaping promptly into a morass of quite convincing lava.  Thirty minutes into the duel, and the man-of-the-next-two-and-a-half-hours' number of designated opponents had just hit double digits:  half moving constantly on and off on the dais itself, and half - all draped in Notice-Me-Nots and various other types of concealment spells - scattered and attacking as they moved through the bleachers...  The man on the dais was the single constant, a black blur of liquid limbs that seemed to lend him, at the speed he was moving, the ability to defy not just the laws of gravity, but all associated physics.

"How the hell is he going to keep this up for three hours?" Fred Weasley yelled to George through the screaming cacophony. George paid him no mind; he was standing on his seat now, his face as red as his hair as he shouted soundlessly and furiously through the near-unbearable din and offered one particularly persistent opponent two vehement fingers. Hermione sat on the bench, knees pulled up to her chest and maroon cap pulled down firmly over her eyes as she covered her ears with her hands... Ron, Seamus, Dean, Lavender and Parvati were all taking blatant advantage of the decibel levels to practice all of the dubious vocabulary taught Seamus by his elder brothers back home, and that he'd passed on with great enthusiasm to his yearmates in anticipation of the particular occasion... Directly across the dais, the Ravenclaws appeared caught on the horns of a rather agonizing dilemma. Their Head of House, Filius Flitwick, was, in fact, Ren's particularly persistent opponent, and they obviously didn't know which to cheer for... The point was rendered abruptly moot when, caught in a tangle of multi-coloured fire, and right in front of everyone's eyes, Ren Cartwright disappeared as thoroughly as the purple arrow that had comprised the first fired shot. The entire stadium was promptly flooded in the incandescent white light of ten distinct, high powered anti-concealment charms, none revealing a single thing besides the universally startled faces of every member of the audience squinting against sudden induced semi-blindness.

"Where'd he go?" Roger Davies: Ravenclaw, said, bewildered. "Did you get him, Professor Flitwick?"

Professor Flitwick's response, too, was rendered completely moot as the lava abruptly disappeared and the dais reformed into solid, smooth grey stone. Small as he was, and caught off guard,  he lost his balance in the abrupt neo-tectonic shift and tumbled through one of the closing cracks. It sealed neatly above him... He picked himself up, disgruntled, off the floor of the comfortable chamber beneath. Aurora Sinistra smiled at him sympathetically as she and several other eliminated opponents browsed the provided buffet and heckled their still-standing associates via their vantage point of the huge canvas on the wall.

'Anyone spotted him yet?" one of the imported and defeated Aurors asked the room at large as he perused the not-painting. He nearly wet himself as not one, or two, or even three, but another  six challengers abruptly appeared. One of them was Nymphadora Tonks, the last, her mother Andromeda. Andromeda accepted the hand of one of the French delegates graciously and allowed herself to be helped up. Tonks just sat on the floor and sulked.

"What's he doing playing silly buggers with the rules like that?" she demanded of her mother. "He's supposed to be casting _de_ fensively, not _o_ ffensively!"

"That wasn't an offensive move on his part, dear," her mother said. "And it wasn't a spell in any case. How many times do I have to tell you, check your shoelaces _before_ you pull out your wand? Or better yet, buy a pair of boots without laces so that the issue doesn't arise in the first place!"

"I did check them! I double knotted them, even! He _cheated_! I almost had him with that exploding vine and the stupid thing just... Grabbed and yanked when he forced it back at me! And then it threw _grapes_ at me, and I stepped on one and  I _slipped_! It wasn't..."

Andromeda shoved a miniature cauldron cake in her daughter's mouth. Thus stifled, Tonks glared at her, chewing ferociously... Up above, the judges were frowning and conversing rapidly as flood after flood of anti-concealment charms failed to reveal their erstwhile applicant.

"He wouldn't have apparated out, would he?" Gabe Truman, the Hufflepuff fifth year prefect said, looking about uncertainly. "I mean... He could, probably, but... That wouldn't be on, would it?"

"No," Ren's voice agreed from Alastor Moody's body. "It wouldn't be on at all, Mr. Truman. Alright. I've had my break. Next!" Moody abruptly shifted. In his place stood Ren again, wands in both hands. In the chamber below, a very disgruntled Moody brushed himself off.

"What happened, Mad-Eye, what happened?" Tonks demanded excitedly. "How'd he get you?"

"Three second condensed burst of Mass Concealment focused on himself," Moody grunted. "Cast in tandem with whatever the hell that exploding pink thing was that the Venezuelan bloke sent his way. Colour's exactly the same, and with all the noise, no one heard the pop. He'd only have got sixty seconds of absolute impenetrable invisibility out of it, but it was enough for him to sneak up behind me, grab a hair, prep the five-minute  polyjuice, and down it right before the second wave of anti-concealers hit. Blew his cover, but by then he looked like me, was standing right where I was standing, and he'd iced the ground right underneath me too. I landed flat on my arse, wand gone flying, so here I am, and he got a nice little break while everyone was standing around with their thumbs up their... Oh for... SHACKLEBOLT, YOU GREAT PLONKER,  WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT!"

"Ow," Kingsley Shacklebolt moaned as he thudded to the floor. "Just... Ow."

"You'll get absolutely no sympathy from me, Kingsley Shacklebolt," Poppy Pomfrey said tartly as she appeared beside him and bent to examine his impaled shoulder. "Great gits such as yourself who force-sprout _that_ many stalagmites in an enforced and enclosed area have  no right to complain when their opponent inverts them as stalactites. You should be on your knees thanking him for at least sparing your wand arm!"

"Ow." Tonks winced as she came over to examine the injury. "Suddenly I don't feel so bad about the Grapes of Wrath. At least my version of stupidity didn't leave any holes in me."

Above them, and from the screen, there was a rather loud and obnoxiously visceral schlurping sound. An appalled and universal EWWWWWWWWWWWW! sounded.

"Oh my God," Fred said, revolted. "What the ... Oh my _God_. What the _hell_!?" Beside him, Hermione, emerged from under Ron's maroon cap, was in absolute fits of giggles.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she managed. "It's a Muggle thing, you wouldn't..." She erupted into gales of laughter. "She opened up a quicksand pit under him. She opened up a quicksand pit, and he did the..." She twirled a finger, weeping with laughter. "The jumpy thing, with the Force, right, and transfigured it into a Sarlacc pit! With a blue beam of light from his wand, like a _lightsaber_ , and tossed her _in_! He fed your Mum to the _Sarlacc_ , Ron!"

Down in the west side front row, Lucius Malfoy was seated, face buried in his long, elegant hands as he shook with silent mirth. The woman beside him cast him a decided, not-quite-indulgent  Look.

"If you don't behave yourself, Luke," she warned.  "I _will_ send you up there."

"He just fed Molly Weasley to the _Sarlacc_ , Niss!"

"Be that as it may, and whatever _that_ may mean, I don't believe..."

The chime sounding the end of the first hour sounded.

"Five minutes to rehydrate," the head adjudicator announced via _Sonorus_. Ren's arm snapped up and he caught the bottle of water thrown his way from the Hufflepuff contingent, draining it in three long swallows. It refilled automatically; he drained it again, twice, then flopped back on his back on the dais and hauled the cap off, fanning himself with it as he cast a drying charm on both it and his hair.

"Fuckin' _awesome_ ," he said to the roof of the stadium, and flung his arms out, still with a wand in each hand.  Closed his eyes and breathed deeply, in and out, three times before flexing neatly and springing to his feet, bouncing on his toes. " _Alrighty_ then! Who's next?"

* * *

 

**_There were moments in a man's life, Bill Weasley thought as he braced his feet on the rests of the broom and clung to the handle for his own dear life, that were destined to etch themselves so firmly in the memory that that man's great, great grandchildren would likely inherit them as dreams. The particulars of his current view from  on a broomstick a quarter mile above the deepest, remotest regions of Brazilian jungle would have provided more than enough capital to be going on with there, but..._ **

**_"Alrighty then," Ren Cartwright said as he settled himself. His plain, pleasant features were as relaxed as if he'd been headed out to the pub and a beer with his mates. "I think we're good to go." Bill, staring deliberately straight ahead to the far horizon, said nothing... Light fingers brushed over his dark auburn ponytail, and touched his lean, freckled cheek._ **

**_"I'd forgotten the intensity of the colour," Ren said, more than a little wistfully. "You... Your counterpart... turned solid white over the space of the year he turned fifty. And I only met him two or three times before he earned his stripes." The fingers touched his cheekbone again. "Here. Though I guess we've saved you those, anyway. Fenrir Greyback won't be chewing on anyone anytime soon."_ **

**_"Uh?" Bill glanced up at that, startled. "My counterpart was bitten by Fenrir Greyback?"_ **

**_"Clawed. His wife always thought the scars were incredibly hot."_ **

**_"Oh." Bill paused. "Was she hot?"_ **

**_"Mmhmm. Popular opinion rated her as a solid twenty five on that scale of one to ten. "_ **

**_"If you want me to produce you a Patronus, it's a good start, but I'm going to need a little more to work with than that."_ **

**_"She was a TriWizard Champion," Ren obliged._ **

**_"Really?"_ **

**_"Yeah. There was a swimming event too, in Black Lake, so everyone got to see her in her bathing suit. I've always thought that that's why they did have it, to be honest. Never mind that it was February so you could really see her ni..."_ **

**_"Oi. That's my counterpart's wife you're talking about, Cartwright!"_ **

**_Ren sniggered._ **

**_"Okay," he said. "Fence is set and humming... None of them are getting past that... Now we have some fun. Oh." He dug into his pocket. "Here."_ **

**_Bill took the Muggle tennis ball and examined it. "What's this?"_ **

**_"Extra portkey. I've done this before, but I had help last time, and the necessary power was routed through a good fifty of us. Trigger word: 'Revenge' in Gobbledegook. It'll drop you on the doorstep of the British Embassy in Rio."_ **

**_"I'm not feeling reassured here, mate. I thought you said this was in the bag!"_ **

**_"I'm just saying. Horntails are big drama queens. The job'll get done, but if we're separated, I'll meet you there."_ **

**_"We're sitting on a sodding tree branch half a mile up in the sodding sky! There will be no separating, of anything!"_ **

**_"That's the spirit." The hand patted his head again. Bill rolled his eyes up at him over the shoulder._ **

**_"Knock it off," he ordered. "You may be old enough to be my  grandfather to the sixth generation, but that doesn't give you the right to pinch the cheeks or ruffle the hair. Oh, and by the way, if you ever tell Charles, or anyone else for that matter, that I snotted it up on your shoulder while sitting on your lap back there, you'll be learning what  'revenge' sounds like in more dialects than you can even begin to imagine."_ **

**_"Christ, don't you sound just like Al."_ **

**_"Who?"_ **

**_"My son.  Rudest, nastiest little shit this side of France. Never met a kid so much in need of a good paternal cuddle in my life, but he'd sooner have hexed his own bollocks off than admit he was related to me. Bit difficult to deny it since he looked exactly like I had at any given age, but what can you do."_ **

**_"Don't take this the wrong way, but can we get on with it please? Whatever it is?"_ **

**_"Oh. Right. Sure, of course." Ren shook his arms out. "Just for reference, you aren't going colour blind."_ **

**_"Huh?"_ **

**_"You'll think you are, in about two minutes from now. When all the green down there -" he gestured with a wand - "Turns red."_ **

**_"Red," Bill repeated. "As in..."_ **

**_"Blood," Ren said with relish. "If you get sick at any point and need a nice bracing thought... Think on the fact that every single one of those sodding buggers down there... Every single one, male or female - had to meet the prerequisites of absorbing and digesting at least fifty innocent men, women and children alive before whatever passes for their reproductive organs were developed enough to reproduce."_ **

**_Bill looked down at the two hundred square kilometers of wall-to-wall living nightmare, then up at Ren again._ **

**_"Fifty," he repeated. "Each?"_ **

**_"At minimum. Last time I did this, the final body count of the collectibles was just seven thousand, and that wasn't on the day of the bicentennial family reunion. We caught them, in fact, as one of my colleagues put it, during a period of mass family estrangement."_ **

**_"Well then," Bill Weasley said after another moment. "I have just one thing to say then, Master Cartwright."_ **

**_"And what would that be, Mr. Weasley?"_ **

**_"Go."_ **

* * *

 

"It's a police box," Ron said, puzzled. "Like the one right opposite the front door of the Leaky. Is it supposed to be a reference to Aurors or something?" He craned his neck. Two rows of bleachers down and six seats over, Hermione, having uttered an ecstatic little shriek of joy at the first and distinct VWORP VWORP VWORP, had sped directly to Professor Charity Burbage's  (Muggle Studies) side, and, along with a quite bewildering number of equally ecstatic fellow Muggleborns (and not a few half-bloods) was now attempting to referee, at the top of her quite healthy lungs, a fierce debate on the merits of Doctors versus Masters.

"I really like the way it folds up," Padma Patil noted, moved over from Ravenclaw to sit with her twin now that Professor Flitwick was out of the match. "Like origami. The sides just..." She folded her smooth brown hands, flicking her fingers expressively.

"It's a very pretty shade of blue," Katie Bell observed, too craning her neck. "I must say. Maybe it's symbolic too? Blue, blue, blue..."

"That's just the colour that Muggle police boxes are," Ron told her. "There's nothing symbolic about it. At the risk of sounding like Hermione, you really need to get out more." He peered down at the dais below.

"Hazelnut cream?" Minerva McGonagall offered Remus a small box. At his feet, Sirius lay snoozing peacefully as Padfoot. Up on the dais, an even three dozen registered combatants poked, prodded, and provoked, by means of every spell in their quite considerable combined arsenal, at the warding box that now sat squarely in the centre of the dais. Inside the box, Ren Cartwright lolled, his assigned six team mates sitting around him as he passed around a large bag of Muggle Jelly Babies and supervised the construction of a tower made from Exploding Snap cards.

"I really don't think that this is what they had in mind," a young woman of Danish extract said dubiously to her completely unconcerned team leader, "when they said they wanted to you demonstrate your defensive response in a two- teamed siege-and-assault scenario.'

"No?" Ren flipped to his feet, went over the one-way transparent wall, and peered out. "Oh well. That's what they get for being vague."

"How is possible box not break?" asked a heavily accented young Bulgarian who looked as if he might be distantly related to Viktor Krum. "They throw everything short of killing curse!"

"It's a bit complicated," their fearless leader explained, "but basically, they're completely missing the point of the phone."

"Uh?" One of Mad-Eye Moody's favoured third-year Aurors frowned at him.

"If they want us to come out," Ren said. "They have to pick up the telephone and talk to us. They told me that my first and primary goal was to keep as many of you as possible alive as long as possible. Statistics prove that in any given siege situation where the defensive line is vastly outnumbered, the defensive line's best hope of a high survival rate is the offering of an invitation to parlay and discuss the matter like reasonable human beings. We've hung the bloody telephone right there as our invitation, but they're ignoring it, so we're perfectly justified in hunkering down and waiting for them to get so frustrated and bored that they start picking each other off on our behalf."

"Huh," one of the Canadian delegates said. Then, jumping nervously as a sudden ripple of light seemed to flow through the walls of the hitherto quite impervious warding box... "What the... What was _that_?"

"Runic fences," Ren told her. "Do two things; they keep magic in, or keep magic out. Runes are not inherently magic; they're powered by the magic thrown at them. Now suppose... Just suppose one were to create a great big runic fence designed to keep magic out, and just happens to be shaped like a box? What would happen if the people outside the box kept throwing magic at it?"

"Would make box stronger!" the Bulgarian said in delight.

"Exactly. Now. Suppose again that the runic box... Or this variation of it anyway, I've got several of them... Has a tolerance factor built into it, designed specifically, once a certain quantitative level of raw magic, however channeled and in whatever form, has been thrown at the fence... To dissolve all the runes that make up the box at once, or at least the defining shapes of them. What would happen then?"

The Bulgarian's brow furrowed. "Runes all melt together?' he said tentatively. "In one solid surface, like sheet of glass?"

"Reflective glass," Ren agreed. "With that split second memory of what all the runes that originally defined it were intended to do before  - that is, keep magic out. Remember back on Day One, when we talked about how Gryffindor Tower wouldn't collapse once we removed all of the wards because it would take a bit for Hogwarts' core to process what had happened and reroute the power away to other sources?"

Eyes widened.

"Brace yourselves," he advised. "Three... Two... One..."

An absolutely spectacular explosion of sound and light filled the contained dais, virtually blinding and deafening the hordes filling the stadium. It took a full three minutes for the smoke to clear. Once it had, the audience blinked in tandem. The dais was empty, save for the police box - every single combatant - forty four of them at last count - had disappeared as if into thin air. The door of the police box opened, and Ren Cartwright stepped out, his team behind him, just as the chime signaled the end of the second hour.

'Clean 'er up," he told his team. They immediately set about collecting the scattered wands, all blasted out of their owners' hands by the force of the reversed magical storm directed at the newly mirrored surface of the warding box.

"Fantastic." Ren looked about. "Huh. The biters bit... Hoist on their own petards.... I'm rubber, you're glue, throw magic at me, it sticks to you... Congratulations, Team Cartwright. Looks like we all made it through. You know what that means, right?"

"It means they should have picked up the telephone," Lucius Malfoy murmured to his wife.

"Oh, I know that one!" Ron Weasley's arm waved frantically as he stood on his bench, one trouser leg held firmly by each twin brother in order to prevent him from actually bouncing. "Me, me, pick me!"

"Have at it, Mr. Weasley."

"You offered them the classic invitation to parlay," Ron recited swiftly. "Employed toward the end of minimizing defensive losses when faced with a situation where a team is vastly outnumbered and overpowered. Your first and primary objective, as assigned to you by the adjudicators, was to protect your team-mates: therefore, and toward that end, you presented a metaphorical white flag, represented by the fellytone..."

" _Telephone_ , Ronald!" Hermione snapped.

"That, yeah. Straight up, but they ignored it, so you had no choice but to sit tight in your police box there and wait, as per statistical likelihood in pretty much every similar scenario in every battle in every war ever fought in the history of the _world_ , for them to get bored and frustrated and start picking each other off for you. Which they did." He paused for breath. "Though... What would have happened if they had picked up the fel - telephone? To the box, I mean?"

"We would have had to come out," Ren admitted. "After that... Well. Divination was never my best subject, and I've never put much personal stock in prophecy besides. I mean, okay, I went through my angsty adolescent 'nothing I can ever say or do will ever make a difference so why bother trying' stage just like everybody else, but really, that's just self-indulgent, self-fulfilling, and yes, ultimately self-defeating thinking when it comes right down to it. Pretty sure when I'm a hundred forty I'm not going to be looking back and saying 'Gosh, wasn't my life just a whole lot _better_ because I toed the line and lay down and died like so-and-so told me I should because it was my ultimate destiny?" That being said," he added at the bemused looks now flanking him on all sides, "I may or may not have a bit of a saving-people thing, and that bit of an unhealthy self-sacrificial streak besides, but when it comes right down to it again you do only live once, and I fully, fully intend to get my money's worth there- twice over, even -on my own terms. Oh, _and_ earn enough to fund the after-game drinks - all the drinks - besides, with all the people I love still very much alive and well along with me."

"Brilliant," Ron said blankly, and sat back down on the bleachers.

"I'm delighted to hear it," Neil said dryly from his own seat. "As would everyone else who had to suffer through that angsty adolescence of yours you just mentioned, I'm sure. I trust you're feeling appropriately rested, then, and ready for round three?"

"You bet." Ren spun his wands neatly. "Bring it on."

"Mm," his grandfather said. A door opened underneath the dais, and a long double row of eliminated contestants began to file out. All looked rested, recovered, appropriately fed and hydrated, and quite, quite prepared - eager, even -  to resume battle.

"The final hour," the head adjudicator announced. "All remaining registered opponents and the eliminated colleagues are called and recalled to their initial positions.  There will be no warm up as there was in the first round; the scenario will begin mid-battle. Master Cartwright has no remaining allies. He stands alone. His sole objective is to survive as long as possible, besieged from all sides. All attacks, gentlewitches and gentlewizards, will be launched from the bleachers. You may team up with your colleagues at whim, or in groups. Master Cartwright is restricted to the dais, but may use any and every means at his disposal to defend himself there, including wandless magic should he be disarmed. The round will end when he is rendered unconscious and/or magically immobile. As long as he is still on his magically active feet, he is in the game. Toward the end of assessing his skills, points will be awarded him per ten second increments of survival. All registered wands have been temporarily locked against the list of prohibited spells: in other words... If you cast it and it works, it is allowed. Master Cartwright?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Every civilian in this bleachers - that is, all of those who have not been registered as your official opponents -  has had, as you are fully aware, his or her hand automatically and magically stamped when coming through the doors of the stadium.  Those stamps have protected said civilians from the effects of any and all outgoing misfired spell effects - that is, those launched from the bleachers - from the moment the opening sally was fired against you at the beginning of your examination. Those same civilians have been protected from the effects of your own spellwork by the shield placed between the dais and themselves. Toward the end of encouraging you to resist the inevitable instinct to preserve yourself by reducing the number of your opponents, we will, for the next sixty minutes, be removing that shield. The civilians will be protected against your opponents' efforts through the magics inherent in the stamps on their hands... But they will be completely helpless against the effects, directed or misfired, of any of _your_ spells. Do you understand me?

Ren inclined his head.

"For the sake of said civilians' peace of mind, then, please summarize in your own words."

"I am, even as I defend myself, an active and constant threat to our guests and the students and faculty of Hogwarts," Ren said. "Any and all injuries sustained by civilians are on my head and conscience."

"Mm. There's a little more to it than that, Master Cartwright. Allow me to clarify. Your head and conscience aside... If any one - _any single individual in this stadium -_ retains so much as a scratch that can be traced back to your wands, or, in the case of wandless magic, your magical signature, at the end of this hour - you will have automatically failed your examinations. All of them, not just today's. You will have failed to attain your Mastery, do you understand me? You are seeking to become an International Warder, Master Cartwright - a guardian and protector not just of those you personally value and love, but of the entire world.  It is not a job. It is not a career. It is a calling. If you do not truly know... Not just believe, but know... That you can manage this next hour without risking anyone here on that deepest, most instinctive level that all of us have to preserve our own lives at any cost... You know what you must do."

Ren Cartwright was silent for a long, long moment... Then lifted his chin.

"I'm in," he said simply.

The head adjudicator said nothing more, just nodded and consulted his notes. "One minor amendment to the standard rules," he said. "You may employ your police box, but only three times during the hour, and for no more than thirty seconds per go. Beyond that, on either count... Your hour abruptly ends. For all those possessing unregistered wands, please be made aware that every wand held by every single individual currently seated in this stadium was recorded, at the moment each of you stepped through the doors of the stadium, on a second magical register. Any unauthorized attacks made against any individual inside the stadium, at any point during the next hour will result in an automatically, immediately and magically snapped weapon and official charges of attempted assassination. As this is an internationally sponsored event, those charges will stand not just on the local and national level, but on the international level as well." He lowered his notes. "Any questions?"

"No sir," Ren said from the dais. "Though I do have one comment."

"And what would that be?"

Ren pointed his right-hand wand. "Auror Tonks there might want to check her shoelaces before we begin."

Every head, without exception, turned toward the the startled pink-haired young woman now taking her place in the bleachers. During those three seconds of distraction, there was a huge whoof, and a bright flash.

"Made you look," Ren's disembodied voice said from behind the roof-high surrounding wall of Horntail fire now outlining the perimeter of the circular dueling dais. No heat radiated from it, but the constant flickering and shimmering of the concentrated flame was so distracting that it was impossible to focus on the black-clad man behind his shield.

"Oh, come _on_ now!" Tonks said loudly, disgusted. "That's just not _on_! OW! Mum! Knock it off!"

"Tie your sodding shoelaces, Nymphadora," Andromeda Black Tonks' voice rang out grimly. "And shut your mouth and duel. I don't want to hear one word out of you in the next sixty minutes unless it's aimed at that dais, you get me?"

"My goodness, but she's rather adorable, isn't she?" Remus murmured to Sirius, glancing over his shoulder at the young woman as they aimed their wands at the stage and started firing flame-stabilizing spells in precise tandem. 'I quite like the pink ha..."

Then the wall of fire collapsed with a second whoof, and the battle began in earnest.

* * *

 

_I should be frightened, **Bill Weasley thought. It was as clear and focused and tranquil a thought as he'd ever had.** I should be frightened. I'm sitting on a shaved-down tree branch over the deepest, darkest Brazilian jungle a quarter mile up from certain death, and there's a half-naked nutter from another world standing behind me wielding a pair of reincarnated dragons in his hands and singing an entire world's worth of pregnant pillowcases a lullaby._

**_It wasn't really singing. Chanting, more like. It was the pitch of his voice, Bill thought. And the speed at which he was chanting, though the tone was eminently soothing for all that, and the young curse-breaker was pretty damned sure that it wasn't Latin either._ ** _Also, there are the power levels to be considered. They're bound to have something to do with it. And there's the fact that the dragons are mated too._

_I wonder if working together like this, when they're using this much power and being wielded by the same wizard, translates as shagging?_

_I shall have to remember to ask Charles._

**_Bill tilted his head slightly, looking up at the man who called himself Ren Cartwright._** _He looks so_ ordinary, **_he thought._** _So... Muggle_ **.** _Alright, **he temporized as his eyes traveled down slowly, and up again.** Not that ordinary. **Bill Weasley wasn't remotely bent, but he did have an appropriately developed sense of the aesthetic.**_

**_Ren paused for breath._ **

**_"Okay," he said to Bill. "Here's the thing. I'm doing the same things we all did the last time, but I'm doing it in a different way. I'm working with two wands, not fifty, and the wands... Well. They're a bit different themselves, yeah? I know this will work, I know it... But I'm not..."_ **

**_He hesitated._ **

**_"Things," he said. "Little things, the tiniest things... They can make a really, really big difference. The end results will be the same. I know that. I know we'll be safe with it, one way or the other. But this part now, the part we're coming up on... I don't know quite know what will happen. I'm not trying to scare you with it, I'm just... saying."_ **

**_Bill Weasley considered that, and him. It really, when it came right down to it, didn't take that long at all. He had his bracing thought to be going on with, after all... He looked down, and before him, as if seeing through a second pair of eyes, he saw, not two hundred square kilometers of nausea-and-nightmare inducing horror, but hundred of thousands of men, women and children, maybe even millions (fiftyeach) looking back up at him. Maybe even_ ** **millions, _and maybe he was brave after all, and maybe he wasn't, but it didn't matter, because in that one moment, William Arthur Weasley was the absolute embodiment of that which defined a Slytherin, with only one clear and focused, absolute ambition in mind: to bear  personal witness to this singular historical event in honour and memory of all those maybe-millions of men, women and children (fiftyeach) looking up at him now._**

**_"I'm in," he said simply, and leaning forward slightly, rested his forehead against Ren Cartwright's thigh and fixed his eyes on the scene below. Just for a moment, those fingers touched his hair again. Bill rolled his eyes at him, but only metaphorically this time, because... Well. His eyes had that other job to do just now, didn't they._ **

**_"Bill," Ren said._ **

**_"Yeah."_ **

**_"Thanks," he said quietly. "For coming with me. It means... A lot. More than you know."_ **

**_"Cartwright," Bill said. The faces below him, looking up at him were a little blurry now, not from nausea or a disoriented brain, but because..._ **

**_He wasn't about to let go of the tree branch. A quarter mile up was yet a quarter mile up, after all. So he had no choice, after all, but to let his tears fall as they would. They rained down softly over the lush, glad-eyed foliage below, falling down, down, down. In the back of his mind, somewhere very far away, he heard, of all things, Lucius Malfoy's voice, ringing clear and delighted and bright as a clarion bell._ **

**"This is the hour of pride and power/Talon and tush and claw/Oh, hear the call!—Good hunting all!/That keep the Jungle Law!"**

**_"Yeah, Billy?" Ren Cartwright said._ **

**_(fiftyeachfiftyeachfiftyeach. Minimum)._ **

**_"Go," William Arthur Weasley said. "Fucking_ ** **go _."_**

* * *

****

Ren Cartwright sat bolt upright and suddenly, shot up out of unconsciousness as a bullet from a Muggle gun. He looked around wildly, batting off the restraining hands and alarmed voices all around him as his abruptly woken mind sharpened and focused on the one objective and one objective only... Information.

 "Did I hurt anyone?" he demanded. "Is anyone hurt? REPORT! NOW!" Sharp and Focused held up their hands and slunk off simultaneously, muttering something about pain relievers and/or mandated medical leave... Ren waved them off, and turned to inspect the rest of his troops, and blinked, then blinked again. "Oi! Who turned out the lights?"

"Everyone's fine, Master Cartwright," Poppy Pomfrey's brisk, soothing voice reassured him. "Come now, lie back. What's the last thing you remember?"

"Pain," Ren said. "Lots and lots of pain. Ow." He lay back down abruptly. Big, gentle hands caught him and lowered him back. The lap on which Ren's head came to rest, he thought, was most spectacularly solid and comfortable. "What _should_ be the last thing I remember?'

"Well... We're not quite sure, to be honest." Poppy said after a moment. "You were doing well, very well indeed, and then you just... Stopped. In your tracks. From what we could tell... You seemed to be having an argument with someone."

"Oh. Oh. Right. That would have been my wands again." Ren paused. "I didn't snap them, did I?"

"Your... Did you... I beg your _pardon_?" The mediwitch didn't sound just startled, but genuinely shocked.

"They were upset." His voice was clearing and strengthening with every word. "They saw that I was reaching my limit, and wanted me to fight back. I'm their kid, remember? Horntails don't like it when people attack their kids. You're absolutely _sure_ nobody got hurt?'

"No one but you, no," she said, a bit dryly.

"Oh. Well. Good. That's alright then."

"I suppose it is, from your point of view anyway. I'm curious, Master Cartwright," the mediwitch said.  "Why would you ask if you'd snapped your wands?"

"They were being stupid. I told you. Trying to take me over. Told them to fuck right off, I did. Said I have back-ups, and I'm not afraid to use them." It was time to open his eyes, Ren decided... He was sure Poppy wouldn't lie to him, and that when she said that everyone was alright that that was what she believed, but proper protocol did dictate that he examine evidence and file the reports there himself. He opened his lids, or tried to. It was a bit of a moot point, he realized after a moment. It seemed they already _were_ open.

_Huh. That's..._

_Mildly disturbing._

"Your wands," Poppy Pomfrey's voice was saying oddly. "Tried to take over your _mind_?"

"No, no," Ren reassured her, momentarily distracted from his disconcerting personal moment. "Nothing like that. They were getting just getting really loud toward the end there and it was  really distracting."

"So you wouldn't  really have snapped them?"

" _What?_ No, of course not! I wouldn't do that.  Couldn't do that. They're _people_ , even if they are dragons. Wands. Whatever.They were just being pushy like I said, so I finally told them they might be the ones with the oomph, but I'm the one with the hands. Big drama queens, Horntails, so you have to match them in the melodramatic moment if you want to get through to them. I suppose in  the end, we just had what they call a Mexican standoff." He considered that. "Though I guess in this case, it'd be an Amer-Euro-Hungarian standoff."

Poppy laughed. Ren peered again into the dark.

"So why can't I see anything?" he wanted to know.

"Filius hit you with a targeted Confundus charm," the mediwitch said. "It hit you in the eyes. You'll be fine though; the effects are temporary, and there are potions for that sort of thing besides. So how did you convince them to back off?"

"I told  them that I might be  their kid, but everyone here is my kid. On that metaphorical level anyway, but Horntails don't really do metaphors. Drama, yes. Metaphors, no. So they took me literally, and in the end it worked, because it's like I said, right, Horntails have a real thing about family. Think I might even have got through to them permanently, between that bit and the bit where I told them that i f I'm gonna be an International Warder,  the whole world will be my territory, and so, by proxy, theirs. And as dragons, we'll have to work to protect that territory together, right? First though, I told them, we have to earn the rights there, and I told them that what I was doing. Earning my right to my territory, by demonstrating that I could protect it.  Thick heads, dragons, but I think I got through, like I said. You just have to speak to them in terms they understand, but I was a bit busy straight off  and didn't have the time to stop to stop and explain things properly from the beginning, and they put up with it for awhile, till they reached the point where they thought I was in actual real da.... _OWWWWWWWW_ " He bucked and roared as sudden immense pain seared through his eyeballs... When it had subsided, almost as quickly as it had begun, and he'd caught his breath... "What the bloody fuck was _that_ all about?"

"The curative potion,' a deep amused voice said. "Or rather, the curative drops. The standard rules on the mandated horrible taste on anything brewed by a Potions Master translates."

 Ren blinked again, tilting his head back slightly. His vision did seem to be clearing a little now, but only a little.

"Gramps?"

"Mm?"

"I didn't hurt anybody, did I?"

"Nope. Gave me a few bad moments, mind you, and I don't think my poor heart will ever be the same after minutes seventeen and thirty two, but what can you do."

"Sorry. How far'd I make it?"

"Thirty nine minutes, twelve seconds."

"Really? That's all?"

"Thirty nine minutes, twelve seconds against one hundred twenty registered opponents, from beginning to end," the Headmaster clarified. "Never mind Mr. And Mrs. Drama Queen at the end there."

"Oh." Ren considered that. "I guess it doesn't sound so bad when you put it like that, does it. "

Neil threw his head back and roared. Ren blinked once or twice more, and sat up gingerly.

"Huh," he said, the haze having receded a bit more and somewhat startled to realize that he was not, after all, in a bed in the hospital wing, but on a transfigured pallet at the center of the dueling dais... Poppy was sitting beside him, a neat row of vials and assorted bottles beside her, and Neil was sitting cross-legged behind him now. Ren looked around, struggling to focus enough to identify individual faces, but the burst of pain seemed to have done the final, rapid trick... He blinked again, hard, the last of the haze fading away like dissolved mist, and found himself meeting the gaze of a very pale and anxious Cedric Diggory, seated amongst his housemates in the third row of the east-side bleachers.

"Wotcher, Master Cartwright," Cedric greeted him. "How's the head?"

"Not so bad now, thank.." Ren cleared his throat. "Thank you, Ced. Okay. Okay. Help me up here, Gramps."

"Alrighty then. Slow and easy does it." Neil rose first, squatting and helping him stand, bit by bit till he was standing upright. "There. How's that?"

"Gimme a sec." Ren breathed deeply, once, twice, three times. "Alright. Alright. 'M..." he stopped. "I'm fine now," he said, and just like magic... "Huh. Weird. I _am_ fine. " He stretched experimentally as he did so, the lingering ache behind his eyes (and everywhere else for that matter) dissolving completely, and he rolled his shoulders. Flexed his fingers and wrists, and then, leaning forward, shook his head violently, like a puppy. Sweat flew everywhere. "How about that?" He sounded decidedly pleased with himself as he straightened. Neil, standing beside him, just looked down at him fondly as he offered him the very same crooked-and-slightly-self-deprecating half-grin with which which Neville Longbottom had, very likely, emerged from the womb.  His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his dress robes, unbuttoned and hanging loose now. Peeping out from under, Ren could see the familiar and inevitable brown corduroys and burnt orange jumper, and as he looked back up at the man beside him, his memory tilted just for a moment, depositing him firmly back in the Room of Requirement his first night back at Hogwarts, almost three months ago now.

 **_"_ ** **Blimey _, I'm glad it's you," Neville said fervently. "It would have been_ horrid _if it wasn't you."_**

"Hey, Gramps," Ren Cartwright said, more than a bit unsteadily.

Neil Cartwright said nothing, just removed his hands from his pockets, popped his ears and feet, and held out his arms wide as the entire stadium rose in turn to its own feet... The roaring went on and on and on and on, rising and rising and rising as Harry Potter hurled himself into the  coffee-young earth-spiced-ale-and-lavender-embrace, burying his face in Neville Longbottom's broad, solid shoulder, his whole slim, hard body shaking with the force of his wracked, wrenching sobs. Solid, strong arms wrapped around him, lifting him off his feet just high enough for their owner to speak directly in his  ear.

"Bloody amazing, Potter," Neville whispered fiercely. "Bloody buggering bollocking _amazing_. Well done, mate. Well _done_."

"Thanks," Potter said soggily when he could manage it, sniffling into his shoulder. When he'd recovered a bit, enough for dignity anyway, Neville - Neil - pulled back slightly and wiped the sweat and tears off of his face with the palm of one hand, not letting him go of him for a second.

"I have never," he informed the man before him, his voice resonating magically even over the cheers of the huge crowd as it gradually settled again. "Been so fucking proud of _anyone_ ,  Lawrence Domitian Cartwright, as I am of you right at this moment. It's an absolute  honour and privilege to be your grandfather." He wiped Ren's cheeks with his palm again."So. What's next on the to-do list, mm? After the rest of the exam and the Invitationals, I mean."

"Animagus transformation." Ren scrubbed at his reddened, tear-smeared face himself, with his fists. "Bets?"

"Six months tops," the Headmaster said promptly. "Taking the Invitationals into account again. Otherwise it'd be Christmas. Though... There's still that little matter of the clean up in Brazil, mm? You're good, but even you might have a bit of a job with that one."

"Oh." Ren sniffled one last time and revived visibly. "Oh, that's right. I didn't tell you. That's all done already. One less thing to book into my calendar: Weasley and I went in early yesterday morning, right after the sun came up, and took care of everything."

"I'm _sorry?_ It's... What? You... _What_?"

"It's all done." Ren dug into an invisible pocket for his handkerchief, and blew noisily. "The clean up, I mean.  Sorry. I would have told you last night, but we got in really late, and all we wanted to do was crash. Anyway. We realized as soon as we went in on Wednesday afternoon that it wasn't going to be a whole lot of fun, right, so we figured we'd just get it over with then and there. Well, the next morning, anyway, once there was enough light to work with. No point in dragging out the unpleasant job, and it wouldn't have been prudent anyway, not with what looked like every stinking leth in Central and South America laid out and ready to pop."

He blew his nose again, watching Neil's face over the top of the handkerchief as that one processed. Up in the bleachers, moved over from the Slytherin section to sit with his brothers, Bill sat back and slung an arm around Ron as he waited for the show. Across the dais, Sirius and Remus looked at the goblins, then at each other.

 _Shall we kill them, Mr. Padfoot?_ Remus's expression inquired. _Should we not maim and destroy first, Mr. Moony?_ Sirius' suggested. _But of course, Mr. Padfoot,_ Remus' assured him. _Oh goody_ , Sirius' replied happily. Two rows down and around from them on the north side of the dais, Severus Snape and Eulalia Shelley offered each other their own version of the exchange... Ren looked away from them hastily, before his mind would allow itself to translate... That being said, he _really_ didn't dare look in Minerva McGonagall's direction.

"Pop," Neil repeated after another moment. It sounded rather... Flat. "As in... Give birth?"

"Yup. You talk about your timing? Fuckers only breed for one month once every two hundred years, and there we were. There _they_ were."

"I see." It sounded even flatter. "I don't suppose you'll let me see the memory later?"

"Sure, if you want. Though I can do you one better right now, if you like."

"How's that."

"Hold up, hold up..." His putative grandson dug in his invisible pocket. "Where'd you go, where'd you... Ah. There you are." He held out a small stone, invisible to the audience. Neil held it up to the light.

"This is another one of your police boxes," he said. Murmurs broke out immediately. "The one with the extended internal capacity. Ren, what have you done?"

"The job I was hired to do. Containment as necessary, disposal if possible. We set up the fence first, that was no problem, but the place was just..." Ren made a gesture, handkerchief wadded in his fist. It was as if they were having an utterly private conversation. "There were a lot of them there, like I said. Hard to say exactly how many: they're so hard to see straight on, as you know. You kind of have to get the right angle out of the corner of your eye, but a couple of fanned-out and roaming mass anti-concealment spells targeting the entire area helped us there, a lot, so when you factor in the size of the area, the area and thickness  of your average full-term pregnant leth and the fact that they were stacked like pancakes over every square inch of available surface ...  I'd say there were probably..." He scratched his chin. "Half a million or so? Give or take? And with them all set to double in numbers within the next two weeks it's not like we could risk them breaking out, right? So we went with option two. Disposal."

There was a resounding, echoing, rather dire lull in all murmured conversation at that.

"Half a... _million_ ," Neil repeated. "As in...  Five hundred _thousand_?"

"Based on the speculative math, yeah. Gave us more than a bit of a turn: who would have ever guessed that  were even that many of the fuckers in existence? I sure as hell hadn't, and neither have any of the other DADA experts I've ever talked to: official public estimates there put the entire population, world wide, at what... Two, three hundred? Though it's a bit of a moot  point now," he added. "Like I said. Since we decided it would be best to go with Plan B and all."

In the front row, Lucius Malfoy exchanged glances with his wife, then sideways at the rather dour looking group of goblins... They were not alone there. It was fairly obvious that any number of audience members were indulging in a bit of speculative math themselves

"Mm. I'm beginning to understand now why the Horntails chose you."  Neil dropped the pebble back in Ren's hand and left the stage without another word.  Ren set the pebble on the floor of the dais, stepped back and  flicked his wand. The police box grew to full size: not blue, but a deep, somber black. He pushed his sweaty hair back.

"You've got the pensieved memories already," he said directly to the goblin chief. "From me and Weasley both. You said you wanted proof of disposal, though, before you'd sign Weasley's contract over to me, so that you knew the memories weren't faked. I'm happy to provide that proof, but that being said... _I_ want witnesses to your _witnessing_ of the proof."

The goblins looked at each other. Ren stepped off the dais, onto the trio of steps that he'd mounted precisely three hours and fifty seven minutes before, and pointed the female wand. The door of the black police box opened. A pile of what looked like half-shimmering silvery fabric eased out: a silent gangrenous shadow caught out of the corner of the eye in the last, deathly moment between dusk and full midnight.

"You're safe," Ren said clearly. "You're all safe. It's safe. They're dead. All of them."

And he pointed the wand again, and uttered a single word.

* * *

 

Never in his life, he thought - either life - had he seen such hordes of truly frightened people. For the first time, perhaps, Ren Cartwright truly processed that this was a world where he'd never been known as a hero - and again, that it had been only been one short decade here, rather than thirteen, since this world had quite nearly been eaten by another man who had sought to defeat that which all common sense, over all the millenia, said could not be destroyed.

"It's okay," he said gently from his position on the trio of steps. His voice carried through the crowds on the whispered breath of the extended _Sonorus_ : flatter than usual, almost atonal, as if a good half of the acoustical effects had been absorbed by the mountain of dead lethifolds now stacked in precise, squared off pillars from floor to ceiling over every square inch of the dueling dais."They're all dead. They can't hurt you now, see? They can't hurt... Anyone."

No one moved. No one breathed. The stretched, pale silence made Ren want to cover his eyes, cover his ears... It enveloped him, smothered him, to the point where he was literally struggling for breath.

"There's really, _really_ nothing to be afraid of," he said, as steadily as he could manage it, and then, after another full minute, despite himself and in his now unbearable desperation... "I didn't bring them back to show you or to prove to you what I can _do_ , okay? I just... I brought them back to show you what they can't and won't be _able_ to do, anymore."

Still, no one moved, and no one breathed.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, **shi...**_

"Master Cartwright?" a small, uncertain male voice said. Ren very nearly wet himself in relief as he looked over at the Hufflepuff contingent where Zacharias Smith, of all people, was standing on his bench.

"Yes, Mr. Smith?" he said, making his voice as pleasant and inquiring as he could manage it.

"How?" Smith's voice cracked. "I mean... _How_?"

 _And that will be one million_ million _points to Hufflepuff. Keep this up, Mr. Smith, and I might just have to order Em to stop smacking you around._

"Terence Higgs gave me the idea, actually."

"Uh?" A second young male voice soared and cracked.

"Hey Terence.  You called them carnivorous pillowcases," Ren said matter-of-factly. "And mentioned the laundry. My wife's mum... She used to say that laundry bred. That she swore it was alive. Except for the socks; those would disappear, one of each in each load, but those were the Snorkacks, right? Anyway. She knew a spell that turns the socks and pillowcases inside out, before washing them. I remembered it. You can't kill lethifolds, no: even AK doesn't work on them, but not every spell... Most are meant to do one main thing, but a lot have distinct and differentiated  side effects. So I adapted the laundry spell, and it turned all of the lethifolds within the defined physical range  inside out, and then I followed _that_ up with a really overpowered adapted mass Scourgify that cleaned off all the exposed guts and internal organs. When I Vanished all the mess I had a jungleful of clean laundry, and a simple recast of the Inversion spell turned them all right side out again while leaving them fluffed-and folded besides."

The first blink was almost audible. There was another, then another...  Blank looks followed, then abounded. Ren held his breath.

 _Come on, come on...  Think, children,_ think. _Would a Voldemort wannabe admit to something like that?_

"You used a charm to turn them inside out," Professor Flitwick repeated.  "A laundry charm...And an adaptation of the basic _Scourgify_??"

"It was a little more complicated than that." Ren did his best to look mildly embarrassed, humble, and/or apologetic. "I mean... Yeah. A little. But only a little. Mostly it just required a heck of a lot of power. And well. With two wands... Live, mated Horntails... They laughed at me when I told them the idea, but they were glad of the exercise, anyway. I don't really get the chance to let them just... Have at things very often these days. "

"Are you _sure_ it was just a laundry spell?" Lavender Brown ventured from her position amongst the Gryffindors. "I mean... Could you use that sort of thing to. Um. Turn people inside out?"

"Naw," he said easily. Dismissively. "Might turn your robes around, but that's all.  I mean, there are other ways to do it, and okay, I'm not going to lie, I could more'n likely manage them if I were inclined, but aside from the fact that I specialize in Defense Against the Dark Arts, not the Dark Arts themselves, that's kind of a slippery slope. They're like potato chips, Dark spells are. Crisps. Whatever. No matter the name, it's really hard to stop at one, and personally, I recommend that if you absolutely have to work up an unhealthy addiction, you skip the equivalent metaphors and go straight for the snack food. It's a lot easier to work off a couple extra pounds than literally bloody, soul-altering stains on your soul, and even in the worst case scenario, you're not harming anyone but yourself."

"You're comparing the Dark Arts to potato crisps?" Remus raised a humorous eyebrow at him. Ren just lifted a shoulder at him.

"Whatever. Anyway," he addressed the crowds again. "I was stuck for ideas. And then  I remembered what Terence said, and I wasn't anymore. Just goes to show you, right, not everything has to be all complicated."

"But... They _did_ die!" Zacharias Smith persisted. "You _killed_ them! You're not supposed to be able to _do_ that!"

"They did die, yes," Ren agreed. "But not because of anything I did directly. The spell I used... It wasn't designed to kill them; that was just a fortunate and happy side effect. It all comes back to intent on the part of the caster again, right?  Lethifolds are absolutely immune to spells specifically designed to harm or kill; things like cutting curses and even AK just roll off them, but under circumstances where you'd call death unintentional... They're as vulnerable as anything else. Well, not _as_ vulnerable, you do have to apply the extra oomph, but..." He made a vague gesture again. "It's a loophole. Magic has a lot of those."

"Are these all of them?" Mad-Eye Moody asked abruptly. "From the breeding grounds?"

"No, but the rest are just as dead. All of them that were there at the time, anyway." Bill's voice rang out  from his position amongst his brothers.  "The runic perimeter's still set though. Any more coming in and crossing to breed will be subject to the spell sequences Master Cartwright just described as soon as they're inside the fence."

"Well _done_ ," Neil said approvingly. He approached again at a swift, matter-of-fact stride, and prodded at a heap with his wand. There were several small panicked shrieks, settled quickly.  "Both of you. What do you plan to do with them all, Ren?"

"Dunno. I hadn't gotten that far."

"Mm. Alright." The Headmaster prodded again, with a finger, or rather an extended claw, this time. "They really are rather revolting, aren't they?  Well, till you figure it out... Put them back in the box. We still have the closing acknowledgements to get through, and we're going to need the stage again."

Ren pointed the wand again obligingly. It took a few minutes, and when it was done, and the door closed behind the very last scrap of slain and eviscerated nightmare, he snapped his fingers. He could almost hear the tension collapse as the walls of the box folded in on themselves.The box shrank back to the pebble. He went over, picked it up and dropped it in his pocket.

"Much better." Neil came over to kiss him once on the cheek before returning to his place. "As you were."

"Right. Right." Ren deliberately and obviously sheathed his wands before stretching luxuriously. As he dropped his arms... "Hey, Terence?"

"Um. Yes, sir?"

"Next weekend. You, me, Tamsin Applebee... Broomstick shopping?"

" _What_?" Tamsin squeaked. Ren turned to face her.

"You saved my life," he said to her directly. His every syllable rang precisely through the stadium. "With that one concerned question of yours, Tam. If I'd gone in blind, I'd be dead now. Very _, very_ dead. You didn't see the place - I hope you never do see anything like it - but it was wall-to-wall carpeting. Two hundred square kilometers' worth of wall-to-wall carpeting, and if Bill and I hadn't gone in by air, even with your warning, we'd never have made it half a step. I owe you bigtime: more than I'll ever be able to repay you, I guess, and Terence there too, for the idea that let us bring it all home. If there's ever a history book written about this event, you'd both better be in it for your contributions, or I _will_ have something to say about it." He offered her a deep, formal bow, before pivoting to offer Terence Higgs the same.

And just like that, the last of the tension evaporated.  Tamsin blushed purple. Terence grinned widely as both the Hufflepuff and Slytherin contingents and all of  their associated adult alumni throughout the enormous stadium rose to their feet, roaring as one.

"A broomstick's not much payback for a life debt," Neil observed when the wave had receded. "You can't come up with something better than that?"

"'Pends on what she'd like. Well, Tam? What'll it be?"

Tamsin hesitated, then, hoisted up to the dais by her wildly cheering housemates, stood on her toes and whispered in his ear... Ren laughed, and dug in his pocket.

"You got it." He peeled off an Invitationals ticket. "You want one for a friend too?"

"I'd say yes, but... You can't have that many left?"

"I got twenty in total. Four for the Malfoys, two for you, two for Gramps and his date, two for Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger..."

"WHAAAAAAT?"

"Nev and Harry were most insistent. They said that they wanted you two to have their tickets after all. That leaves ten more. Oh, wait." Ren peeled off two more and sent them flying over to their targets. "There. Professor Black, Professor Lupin... Your wedding present. That leaves eight. Where's Leanna Tovis?"

"Me?" the wiry, bespectacled sixth-year Ravenclaw said, startled, from the depths of the crowd. Ren waved up at her.

"My contacts tell me that you're not only the best duelist in the school, but the woman to go to when it comes to the down-low on the global circuit contenders, on every level. I've got just over six weeks, and if you'll tutor me there on what's waiting for me, a couple hours a day, maybe, I'll give you a pair of tickets and a reciprocated practical lesson per."

"Oh my God." Leanna looked like she was about to pass out. Alicia Spinnet, standing beside her, grinned hugely and kissed her cheek smackingly in congratulations. "Oh my _God_. Are you _serious_?"

"Yup."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

 "I'll take that as a yes." Ren examined his remaining tickets. "Okay, that's enough for today, I think."

"You're not going to give Terence one?" Tamsin ventured from her seat again.

"My family's got tickets already," Higgs told her. "Front row ones even; my sister-in-law's competing. Broomstick shopping sounds lovely," he said to Ren. "As does the promised and guaranteed place in the history books."

"Of course, Mr. Higgs." Ren bowed again. "Oh. One more thing. Mr. Weasley's contract, if you please?" he said to the goblins. They grumbled, but produced it. Ren Summoned it over without so much as a word and read it carefully.

"Looks good." He pulled out a wand, transforming the end to a quill tip. He scribbled neatly, and passed it, first to Bill, come down from his brothers in the bleachers, then to the closest professor: Filius Flitwick, to witness. It flared. "There we go. All done. Subcontracted in perpetuity, or at least till the revised end date, seven years from today. Mola, would you mind?"

Mola, his female Horntail, breathed a white-hot stream of obliging fire from the end of the wand that now comprised her body. The contract crumpled to grey ash. Bill jerked and nearly fell over; his new employer caught him neatly.

"Careful there. I don't do magically binding contracts," Ren informed the crowds. "On any level. I had a very bad experience with them back in what would have been my fourth year; some asshole decided it would be funny to try and kill me by altering the parameters of what should have been a perfectly standard contract at the last minute, and forced me to play a game that he thought I wasn't prepared to deal with. It all worked out for the best, obviously, since I'm still here, and he's not - the asshole that is; though that being said, I didn't kill him; Fate took care of that, and him, all on her own, once again proving the old saying 'as you reap so shall you sow.'" He grinned rather toothily at the goblins. "I'm still in if you are, Weasley," he addressed Bill. "But you'll have to take my word on the particulars, as I will yours, beyond the basic paperwork for the Ministry. Well?"

"I'm in." Bill offered his hand.  Ren shook it firmly. "For Runes. Though if you want to throw in a lesson or two on dueling, I won't say no. And if you come up with any more  DADA or Dark creature related loopholes, I'm definitely in for anything you'd like to share _there_."

Much laughter rose at that. Ren grinned.

"Sounds good. Though right now, the only thing I'm in for is a hot shower and twelve solid hours of sleep."

"Your rooms are right where you left them," Professor Sprout said from her position amongst the first year Hufflepuffs.  "They're yours till after the holidays at least, since your tests, and the contract along with them, have been extended."

"Oh. That's right. I suppose it has been, hasn't it." He caught Remus' stern eye, and  remembering the parental decree on the fortnight's mandated holiday... "I'm not sure... Gramps?"

"The paperwork for the extension has yet to come through there," Neil said. "It may take a couple weeks. Bureaucracy. What can you do. You won't be able to teach till it does, though there's that clause that allows you the bridge loan, so to speak, in terms of maintaining living quarters, and any work you continue to do on the wards in the meantime, of course, I'll consider a personal favour."

"I think you'll be okay there till after the holidays. I'll be happy to come back after the Invitationals and finish what I started, and no, of course you don't have to pay me; I'm your grandson, and have that vested interest in seeing you safe, but I really should get on the last push in training."

"Of course." Neil patted his back. "You're a good boy." He kissed his forehead. "Go on. Go clean up. You want me to order you up a tray?"

"I'm good. I might take off for a few days though, okay? Don't worry."

"I don't think I could if I tried," Neil said wryly. Mad-Eye snorted with laughter at that.

"You sure you don't want a job, son?" the Head Auror inquired. "Pretty sure we could write off the prerequisites of NEWT equivalents, never mind the Academy."

"No, thank you. Please don't take it personally? I'm sure you're all very nice and that the Ministry is a great place to work, but I really do do my best work outside the structured environment."

"You sure? We could use a creative mind like yours, and I promise I won't hold the cracked skull against you. Much."

"Very, very, very sure," the former Head Auror reassured him. "And I really am sorry about yor head by the way. Or rather, my wands are." He looked down his sleeves reprovingly. Two dulcet, delicate tendrils of virtuously white and innocent smoke drifted out: one from each sleeve again, brushing a startled Moody's cheeks in a blatant and rather overly melodramatic conciliatory manner. "They get a little cranky sometimes if I don't give them enough exercise, and Fenrir Greyback and his crew didn't prove nearly as much of a challenge in the end as Gramps promised them. They _will_ behave themselves from now on though, or there'll be no Invitationals _or_ any more Dark Lord hunting for them. I do have back up wands: ones that know how to behave themselves in polite public company, even."

Moody grunted in sour amusement. Fudge just looked annoyed.

"Aside from which," Ren continued blithely, "I have an apprentice now. Take a week there, Weasley, and buy yourself some proper clothes while you're at it."

"What's wrong with my clothes?" Bill looked down. "They're perfectly decent, and if it's the styles you're going on about, you're hardly one to talk about dressing like a Muggle."

"I've got absolutely no problem with the fact that you dress like a Muggle. I do, however, have a problem with the fact that you dress like a banker." His eyes swiveled again to the goblin contingent, his eyes hard and cold, and moved back again, looking the young man up and down. "Oh, and Weasley?"

"Yeah?"

"As long as you're my apprentice, you'll use the American terms there. Nomaj, for those born without magical ability, and Magicals for those born with. You've taken Ancient Runes; you are aware, I'm sure, of the importance of the precise descriptive, and Muggle..." He allowed his lip to curl a little. "I'm afraid I find 'Muggle' a little too vague for my personal taste."

"What of Muggleborn?"

"First-Gens. As in First Generation Magicals."

Bill nodded  as he watched his new employer pack up his things in his satchel. Ren turned to go, but even as he did, his eye caught a very familiar, small, pale face. Memories slammed over him: memory after memory after memory: he nearly doubled over with the force of them, though his face barely twitched. He just stood, frozen, staring down at the child before him. She looked up at him uncertainly.

"Ren?" Neil said, concerned. "You okay there?"

"Ma'am," Ren said to the child's mother. "I'd like to talk to you and your husband as soon as possible on an urgent matter."

"Us?" the child's father said involuntarily. "Why?"

Ren looked down again at Astoria Greengrass: the girl who, in another world, had grown to be the great love of Draco Malfoy's life and yet another tragically doomed mother of another perpetually lost son. Ren had never truly gotten on with his version of Draco, even if they had developed a social truce of sorts in the aftermath of the events of their sons' fourth year at Hogwarts,  but Draco's son Scorpius... Sweet, funny, charming, awkward and sheerly _lovable_ Scorpius... had been as good as another child to him and Gin, if only because of the absolutely and unconditionally pure and unshakable life-long love he'd held for their own resoundingly magically average, sullen, chronically anti-social, and at times frankly hateful youngest child.

The Once-and-Reluctantly-Reassigned-Boy-Who Lived rubbed his cheek, looking down again at the seed of the woman who, no matter the version of the alternate timelines he'd lived through during the Adventures of Albus and Scorpius and the Day of the Thrice-Damned Time Turner, had never had the chance to see _her_ boy live.

_Maybe she and Draco will marry here. Maybe they won't. But no matter whether they do or don't..._

"Gramps and I were going back through our genealogical lines the other day. Our lines are related," Ren said to the Greengrasses. He closed his eyes again, silently asking Gin for forgiveness for a lie that he knew she would never, in any lifetime or universe, condemn him for telling. "Or rather... My wife's family is related to yours, Mr. Greengrass. She died of a condition - a blood curse - that affects the women of your mutual line, cast on your mutual ancestors just before the two branches separated, the one leaving Europe for America. There's a way - a potion - to forestall the condition, but only if it's taken while the woman is still a child. If the child's blood doesn't bear the curse, it won't affect her. If she does.. My wife... The condition doesn't manifest you see, till the child becomes a woman. And the potion wasn't developed till after it was too late for her."

Mr. and Mrs. Greengrass looked at each other.

"We would be." Mrs. Greengrass cleared her throat. "Greatly indebted, Master Cartwright." Mr. Greengrass just rubbed his eyes.

"Is there _anything_ you can't do?" he asked in wonder. Ren smiled at him a little whimsically.

"Yeah," he said. "Boil water in a cauldron without blowing it up. Gramps was the one who came up with the recipe. Right before he came up with his recipe to kill Dementors."

There was an abject silence.

"To kill..." Fudge said oddly. " _Dementors_?'

"It was an accident," Neil said. "I was working on a recipe for an ultra long-lasting air freshener to clear the air in my potions lab, and got startled by one sneaking up on me from behind. I had a vial in hand and sprayed it on reflex." He swatted Ren's head. Hard. " _That_ was for ruining the surprise. I wasn't actually planning on publishing my findings there till after the Invitationals were over. For your sake too, I might add, because I didn't want to steal your _thunder_."

"A cure for werewolves," Geoffrey Holloway: Ravenclaw (4th year) repeated. "Made with Mr. Smiley's Enviro-Cleaning Fluid. A way to kill lethifolds... with the Invert Pillow Charm... And now an air freshener that kills Dementors ?" He held his head. "My brain hurts. A lot." He lowered his hands. "Will you be publishing the recipe there too, Headmaster?"

"Nope," Neil said, and at the askance looks... "What? Fleamont Potter was, and Professor Lupin  is, Gryffindor.  Ren here is at-the-very-least-a-honorary-Hufflepuff. I,  Mr. Holloway, am a _Slytherin_. I'll publish the recipe, yes, but only _after_ I've filed all patents and relevant claims."

"You'd withhold..." Fudge sputtered.

"No, no," Neil reassured him in his best comforting and amiable coffee/young-earth/ lavender-scented manner. "If you have a Dementor you need offed, just give me a call. I'll be happy to pop over and take care of it for you. I'm just not handing over the recipe itself till all the paperwork's been taken care of, as I said, and oh yes... till I get an Unbreakable Vow from the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW _and_ every single member of the All-European Wizengamot that all of the rest of my research, past, present and future, never mind my person, is safe in perpetuity from local and global governmental appropriation in the name of the Greater Good. Not to sound paranoid, never mind American, but... Screw _that_ shit, _and_ bugger it for a bunch of bananas."

Huge broad smiles blossomed all through the Slytherin contingent.

"On that note.." Ren stretched luxuriously again. Eyes crossed all over the stadium.

"It's been fun," he addressed the crowds at large. "Nice little warm up for January. Whaddaya think, Gramps?"

"Oh well." Neil shrugged. "They only got half the equation, didn't they? The defensive half. You'll still have the chance to surprise them with the offensive, and frankly, that's always been where your real strengths lie."

"Stop," his grandson said modestly. "You're making me blush."

"Mm. Go take a bath, Ren. You stink."

"Uh huh." Ren stretched again, and ran both hands through his hair. Plastered with sweat, it stuck up wildly in whorls and cowlicks. He pulled his hands away and regarded them in distaste. "Ew. Yeah, okay. I'm on it." He turned to go, and blinked. Before him suddenly stood Lucius Malfoy, his wife at his side.

"Master Cartwright." Malfoy bowed. "I'd like you to meet my wife, Narcissa."

"Hullo," Ren said, startled, and remembering his own manners, bowed lightly in return. "It's a pleasure, ma'am."

"Likewise, I'm sure," Narcissa Malfoy nodded. From this close distance, she looked almost exactly as Ren remembered her counterpart from the long decades before, but with one noticeable difference; there was a small, light scar in the shape of a precise X in the middle of her left cheek. Her eyes traveled over him consideringly, not in any kind of lascivious manner, but in an assessing, critical way. "Luke tells me that you've accepted his specific invitation for tea next Wednesday at four?"

" _Luke_?" Ren repeated, bemused. She smiled at him briefly. Lucius Malfoy rolled his eyes fondly at his wife. She said nothing, but her gaze seemed to soften a little as she looked Ren over again.

"I'm so very sorry about your wife," she said. Her words, as had all of her others through the power of the migrating and targeting Sonorus  that had enhanced, throughout the proceedings, the projected voice of those whom Ren and the adjudicators had chosen to focus their attention on, resounded through the stadium again. "And I hope you will believe me, Master Cartwright, when I say that I hope that you may find solace one day very, very soon."

Ren nodded automatically, disconcerted. He was even more disconcerted by the audible sounds of jaws hitting the floor all around him. He glanced over at Sirius and Remus, they looked utterly gobsmacked. Then Ron, of all people again, shot to his feet.

"OI!" he said indignantly and loudly.  "Back off, you! You heard him yesterday, _and_ again just now: he's with our Bill! You can't just barge in on him like this; you have to follow the protocols and consult with them both!"

"What?" Ren said blankly. " _What_?"

"For God's sake, Ron," Bill said, rolling his eyes. "Will you relax? It's not like that."

"We _heard_ him! Everybody here did!"

"Master Weasley," Narcissa said gently. "Please. I don't think, from the way Luke here described it to me, that..."

"He's American, Weasley," Draco drawled from _his_ seat. "Variations on the traditional cultural themes again, and it was obvious in any instance again that he wasn't offering your brother a personal commitment. He did accept Father's general and specific invitations, after all, after Father had confirmed his political affiliations with that ridiculous quote,  and he wouldn't have accepted, would he, if he'd had someone he'd need to consult first?" He eyeballed his mother and father disapprovingly. "That being said...  Again... _Really_ , parents? _Really?_ Here? _Now?_ In front of all my associates and half the Wizarding world? What happened to that famed Malfoy sense of the appropriate?"

Ren glanced around, trying desperately not to look as bemused as he felt. Across the room, Remus had turned and was banging his head lightly against Sirius' shoulder. Sirius looked wide-eyed and shocked. Everyone seemed to be waiting expectantly for him to respond... Ron looked somewhat betrayed. George was whispering rapidly in Hermione's ear. Bill had his face in his hands, shaking with... laughter?

"Ron," he managed. "Ronnie. Oh my God. I love you so much. That being said... No, Ron. Just ... No."

"But he was _with_ you!" Ron said stubbornly (and loudly). "Wednesday _night_ , the night before he was supposed to go to _Alexandria_! There was that picture of him in the Prophet at the Leaky Cauldron the next morning, and nobody identified you directly, but he had no shirt or shoes, and said he'd see the person in the morning, and then he said the _next_ day that he'd removed those curses from you, which means he was _with_ you: with _you,_ and then you said you'd go with him to bloody Lethifold Central, and he said he wanted... your... contract... and..." He trailed off, and recovered himself, his voice rising again. "That you were all those nice things; talented and strong and brilliant, and okay, yeah, you're kind of a git sometimes; okay, all the time, but..."

" _You're_ the git," his brother said, cutting him off not unkindly. "It's not _like_ that, Ron. At all."

"It's not?" Ron looked hugely crestfallen. Beside him, oddly, Fred, George and Percy bore sudden and equally disappointed expressions. Hermione's eyes were huge and round as she looked back and forth between the principle players of the moment.  "I mean... Are you sure?"

"Quite, quite sure," Bill reassured him. "Absolutely, _absolutely_ sure. And for the record, yes, it was me at the Leaky with him, but sometimes a removed curse is just that. A removed curse, and as for the shirt and socks... You may take it from me, as another, if not-quite-as-proficient curse _breaker_...  Neutralizing the kind of Dark influences we're talking about can be a quite unpleasantly hot and sweaty job. No point in messing up your clothes if you don't have to, yeah?" 

Narcissa and Lucius exchanged a startled glance at that... More than one person - indeed the vast majority of the in-eyeshot audience - seemed to hold their breath, all attention now focused on the couple. An uncertain, very slight frown flickered Narcissa's face, followed by a delicately cocked, inquiring eyebrow at her husband... Lucius' mouth twisted thoughtfully as he glanced sideways at the now completely confused Ren, again for a long, considering moment before turning back to his wife. His eyebrows, if not his shoulders, seemed to shrug a bit, punctuating a slight, bemused smile and a sudden upturned palm that translated, in its absolute lack of subtlety, to a rather reckless 'what the hell.' Narcissa offered him a definite and surprisingly open and expressive fond look of her own before turning back to the object of their silent exchange.

"That being established," Narcissa said formally. "May we yet look forward to your visit on Wednesday, Master Cartwright?"

Their audience held its breath again... Then...

"Erhm," Ren said uncertainly. He still had absolutely no idea of what was going on, but... "Okay. Sure. Yeah. Wednesday. Four. Okay. Sure."

"YESSSSS!" Draco Malfoy cheered, pumping his arm, and at his father's reproving expression, recovered himself swiftly. "I mean, excellent. Parents, you have my blessing."

"We're so glad," Narcissa said dryly. "Very well, then. Luke? You _were_ the one to extend the initial invitation."  She held her own palm up, fingers together and extended in Ren's direction. Ren just looked from one to the other, running his  hand through his sweat-sodden hair again as he cast an absent full-body clean-and-dry charm. It might not be a bad idea, he thought, to return to Flourish and Blotts and pick up a book or two on local social customs... He was more than obviously missing something crucial, but a life spent in the pursuit of the chronically and socially maladjusted had left him with his own decided handicaps there,  and without any associated  cross-dimensional cultural context, he had absolutely no clue, Auror or not, of what he was missing. Lucius Malfoy just smiled at his wife and kissed her forehead, turned to face Ren - and, with two quick strides, took the shorter man's chin firmly in his hand, bent quite a little more than slightly, and brushed his lips over Ren's own. Ren eeped and jumped violently, arms flailing and absolutely shocked, his mouth opening to protest.

It was a tactical error. The kiss deepened. Considerably. Malfoy tossed his walking stick to his wife (she caught it neatly) and pulled the former Harry Potter into his arms, whereupon he proceeded to completely, if gently, ravish his mouth in front of the entire packed stadium. Somewhere in the back of Ren's wildly careening, now completely overloaded and crashing mind, he couldn't help but note that the man's fine straight lips  (curving up slightly at the corners against Ren's own lips, even as he took blatant advantage of the unanticipated moment) were quite a bit softer than he would have expected, and that he certainly knew what to do with his tongue... Despite himself, Ren suddenly found his flailing left arm locking itself firmly around Malfoy's hips, and a seized fistful of platinum ponytail in his right hand as he hauled the much taller man hard against his body and kissed him roughly and just as thoroughly in return. Far from seeming startled or put off, Malfoy  slipped  his own long arm around Ren's slim waist, the lean, elegant hand splaying  across the smaller man's lower spine as he held him firmly snugged against his lower body. Ren's mind, now a white-hot morass, spun wildly, his left arm abandoning Malfoy's hips even as the right hand hauled the binding off the ponytail... His eyes clenched tight, he dug the fingers of both hands into the loosed blond mane, pausing only a brief second for air before pulling Malfoy's head down again and  slamming his lips against the other man's mouth once more.

The stunned crowd watched as Lucius Malfoy, completely unperturbed, settled his feet, his own second hand threading through the soft, spelled-cleaned light brown hair, his thumb rubbing the side of Ren's head in small, soothing circles as he firmly and with obvious expertise took control of the savage, feral mouth assaulting his. Several feet away, Narcissa watched with raised eyebrows and a small quirked smile... Perhaps thirty more seconds passed before Ren's eyes flew open and he abruptly pulled away, hurling himself backwards. He stumbled with it, the first display of real gracelessness he'd shown all day, but the bigger man's hands shot out, catching him neatly and balancing him.

Then Lucius Malfoy released him as gently as he'd first kissed him, looking down at him, his lips tilted up into a full smile and his blue eyes alight with genuine soft warmth and intrigued pleasure.  Ren's hands fell loosely to his sides, his own peculiar, half-puzzled expression betraying (though only to those very few select individuals who knew him well enough), as he stared up at the other man, his utter shock and absolute terror, not only at the situation, but at his own primal, instinctive and blindly passionate response.

"Let it be known that House Malfoy has confirmed its statement of intent," Malfoy said to the stadium in general, his voice deep and pleasant and calm, "for negotiation of Solace with Master Lawrence Domitian Cartwright, subsidiary of House Longbottom, and toward which end the standard period of exclusive consideration shall apply."

He offered his wife his arm. They left the stadium together. Ren didn't move so much as a muscle as he stared after them.

" _Bugger_ ," Jessamyn Rhodes said in disgust, and kicked the closest bench violently as she threw down her thermal mug. "Three more _days_. Three more _days_ till I turn seventeen, and I'd've been able to file. Bloody buggering..." She stomped off, muttering.  Remus, his mouth one grim, thin line, strode up to Ren, a still utterly gobsmacked Sirius in tow, and took his lax arm.

"Headmaster's office," he muttered to his son. " _Now,_ Harry."

His mind, if not his emotions, now nothing but a complete blank, with the taste of Lucius Malfoy's lips still on his and the last glimpse of Bill Weasley's sudden and alarmingly impassive expression, Ren Cartwright obeyed automatically. There was a loud triple crack, and the three men disappeared. Neville Longbottom's lips firmed; he reached out and touched Minerva McGonagall's hand. She turned. He jerked his chin toward the general direction of the Headmaster's tower. "Augusta," he mouthed. "My office. Now." She nodded, and headed for the doors.  Across the dais, Severus Snape and Eulalia Shelley slipped discreetly out the north exit... The head adjudicator rose smoothly to his feet, and mounted the dais.

"On behalf of my colleagues, and of course, Master Lawrence Cartwright," he said, his voice magically rising over all. "I thank you all your interest and active support in these proceedings. The adjudicators' panel now plans to retire for the remainder of the weekend to assess today's practical.  Master Cartwright will be informed of the results first, on Monday morning at nine precisely, and the generalized results: that is, pass or fail, will be released to the public that same evening.  The decision to release the specific assessment of his skills, strengths and weaknesses as a Warding candidate remains Master Cartwright's and Master Cartwright's alone."

His eyes traveled around the now empty stage, where had lain the huge piles of lethifold skins... He closed his eyes and shuddered lightly.

"Master Cartwright informed the panel last night," he said. "When he and Mr. William Weasley returned from Brazil, that he now considers the area that they cleared yesterday a viable  site for the construction of Gringotts: Rio's remote vault system. That being said... He also informed us that he had sent a personal request to the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, via Priority One postal portkey..."

He paused again. The next words seemed to stick, rather.

"The sites selected for Master Cartwright's two remaining examinations," the head adjudicator said. "Contracted out on bid to interested parties, have been revoked - Alexandria, because it has been confirmed that the unanticipated practical issues with the site will, indeed, affect Master Cartwright's - any Warder's - ability to perform the specific spells on the International Masteries prerequisites list, and Brazil, because Master Cartwright, after the events of Wednesday and yesterday, has requested, in spite of the fact that he himself confirmed that the originally selected site is safe and suitable for its intended and designated purpose, that the Supreme Mugwump, as elected head of the  ICW, override the Masteries Board's contracted agreement with Gringotts: London. We of the International Masteries Board have just received confirmation that the Supreme Mugwump has approved his request, and are therefore mandated to select two new sites for the remainder of Master Cartwright's Warding exams."

His words fell like anvils in the dead silence.

"Merlin's _balls_ ," Marcus Flint: Slytherin (who was not nearly as stupid as he liked to present himself, and easily a dozen times more cunning than anyone would ever be inclined to believe in his lifetime) muttered under his breath.

"What?" a younger Slytherin demanded of him (quietly). "What? What does that mean?"

"It means he's got absolute and incontrovertible proof that it was a set up after all, is what it means. There's no way that the Supreme Mugwump would have approved a request like that _without_ that kind of proof: he'd have had to inform, not just the head gobbo at London, but the head of Gringotts International that he was doing it, and the head of Gringotts International is like their frickin' king. Sending a message like that his way, with the statement of override rather than a request for consultation on the subject... It's basically the Wizarding King telling his Gobbo Majesty that if he don't bend and spread on this one, he'll be triggering the next episode of the Great Goblin Wars."

"Oop," the younger Slytherin said, as he processed that.

"Mm," Flint agreed, and gathering up his things, stood and stretched mightily as the head adjudicator made his closing remarks and retreated down the dais. "That was absolutely _brilliant_. Watching that, all I want to do now is go hunt me down a pack of Gryffindorks and practice my technique on them."

Up in the Headmaster's Tower, in Neil Cartwright's office, the din was almost as resounding as it had been in the stadium... The door flung open and Neville Longbottom strode in, slamming the door behind him.

"Where is he," he demanded without preamble. "Ren? Mate? It's alright, mate, I'm here. It's going to be alright, mate, you're going to..." He stopped. Sirius and Remus, Snape and Lily, Minerva and Augusta, and, of all people, Bill Weasley - were there, turning as one. "What the buggering hell? Where _is_ he?"

"He's gone," Remus said. His face was dead white, his lips straight and thinned. "He dropped Siri and I here, and cracked right out again."

Neville swore. Violently, before visibly collecting himself. "Weasley," he said. "What..."

"I know," Bill said without preamble. "He told me. Me and Charles both. Last Wednesday."

"He... _What_?"

"I know who he is and who he isn't. I know who you are. I know... Who all of you are. What I don't know, and what I'd really, really, really _like_ to know, is WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED JUST NOW!"

"You, Mr. Weasley," Snape said with decided displeasure into the silence that followed. "Are in exactly no position to demand explanations for anything."

"I bloody well reckon I _am_ ," Bill snapped. "Since the curses he removed from me the other night weren't curses at all, but a bloody buggering series of bollocked up bio-runes: anchor runes to _your world_ , set in place nineteen years ago to facilitate a transfer of souls between the body of my dying baby brother and the extended version of his very dead, no make that very much alive now, how did my brand new employer put it again... _metaphysically displaced_ counterpart!"

" _What_?"

Bill sank down on the chair, holding his head.

"It's different, your world," he said. "Obviously. On the little things. He doesn't know what went down in there, does he?  He's got no buggering clue what was said or done."

"No," the Headmaster said. "No. He does not." He pulled up his own chair, precisely, and sat. "Be seated. All of you. Now."

Everyone sat. Neville set his elbows firmly on his desktop and rubbed his face with both hands, hard, for one long moment before removing them and sitting back. No one present could miss the fact that the fingernails with which he was tapping the desktop were not fingernails at all, but great black (if proportionate to the size of his hand) claws. Sirius stared at them as if hypnotized, mouth slightly open in his tear-ravaged face.

"He's in love with him," Bill said flatly, into the silence. "With Charles. Isn't he. Was in love with him. They were in love with each other. That's why he couldn't AK him. At the end."

"No," Lily Potter said immediately. "No, he was married to your... to Charlie's sister, Bill. They were very close, yes, but that's..." She trailed off, looking around as everyone present, Bill included, offered her looks of patent, near comical disbelief. She turned to Snape. "Sev?" she said uncertainly.

"I... do not know," Snape said. He, too, sounded decidedly unbalanced. Uncertain, even. "I was as dead as you were, Lily, and Potter... He was not in the habit of confiding in me on such matters when I was alive, or to my portrait after."

"Don't take it to heart," Neville advised him. "He managed to go  a hundred thirty nine years without confiding in himself, after all." The claws tapped again. The desktop looked as if was beginning to feel it.

"I don't..." Lily covered her face. "I watched him as much as I could, but... it's not... It's not like real watching, I..." She removed her hands. "How could he not know what was happening? The secondary aspects of the traditions, obviously, are far more overt and acceptable here than they were in our world, but they yet _existed_! Every wizarding child knows them, knows their options, their... James' parents outlined the essential legalities to him when he was six! And yes, he was raised by .... But how could he live a hundred forty years and not... _Know_?"

"Harry told me once that he met his wife when he was eleven," Augusta Longbottom said. "When she was ten. He grew. He fought a war. He won a war. He married that wife in the aftermath. He truly, truly loved her, and she, him. They had children, grandchildren... He predeceased her. And again, as you said, Mrs. Potter... The boy was raised by Muggles. Who, among those who knew them once he'd entered Wizarding society proper - half blood, pureblood or no... Would ever have found themselves having a conversation where the relevant details were relevant? He might have heard of them during his years at Hogwarts had he been privy to anything close to a normal and undistracted adolescence... But he was not. And you yourself just inferred, Mrs. Potter, that those details were not something discussed in any company on anything other than a need-to-know basis. I myself find it quite plausible... Probable, even... That your son never learned them."

"You're saying that no one... No one he knew... Not one person, in all the years... Of all the people he ever knew... Were ever in a position that might have _made_ him aware?"

Neville's claws receded slightly.

"No," he conceded. "I'm not saying that. I'm saying that your son, Mrs. Potter, was a very particular kind of man, raised, not by individuals, but by an entire society that was deeply, deeply invested in seeing him raised a certain way, toward a certain end.  Their end. The vast majority of the people Harry met in his life, his closest friends and acquaintances included, were part and parcel of that society. They may or may not have meant him harm, but that doesn't mean they weren't, however unaware, predisposed to support a worldview that, as an indirect and unintended side effect... _Did_ cause him harm. Never mind that the one example of the exhibited tradition of Solace, as it's obviously called in both worlds, that we might have used to educate him there..." Neville Longbottom's lips quirked. "Well.  He never really got along with Draco Malfoy, and the fact that I was the man's preferred source of comfort after the only woman he loved or ever would love died  might have disturbed him more than a little."

Everyone present, with the sole exception of Augusta, blinked at that.

"Draco _Malfoy_?" Snape repeated. "Why did you never enlighten me on this, or rather my portrait, Mr. Longbottom?"

"Because it was none of your business. Though I might have wondered once or twice myself that _you_ never realized it, considering that my Animagus form was an Alaskan Kodiak, and Drake's form, achieved less than a month after mine, was an Arctic snow hare. We'd been together for over thirty years at that point, and it translated."

"How was your wife involved in all this?" Sirius asked, fascinated. "And what was your exchange of solutions?" Remus elbowed him, hard.

"She was the one who suggested him as a candidate to the solution to our mutual problems in the first place. Drake had his heir from his deceased wife, so House Malfoy's physical future was assured at least, but his House's reputation was another story. It was in absolute shreds after the war, with approximately zero chance of any kind of full social or political recovery. On our end, Longbottom had the uncompromised and impeccable reputation, but I, as the last Heir of Longbottom, had no children. That meant that the line would end with me. So the three of us sat down to discuss the possibilities, and agreed that my wife and I would legally adopt Drake's only son's prospective second child, not as our child, but as Longbottom's new Heir and future Head. In exchange, Drake would receive an unparalleled, and to him, literally priceless  opportunity for his descendants - an official, legally recognized familial and political alliance with one of, if not _the_ , most respected Houses in Great Britain, and through that, a chance, if only over time, to redeem the Malfoy name for good and all." He eyeballed Sirius severely. "As for my wife's involvement, as you so gracelessly expressed it, in the unspoken and standard secondary benefits of the arrangement, Mr. Black... I do believe that that is exactly none of your business. No more than it will be my business to inquire on _your_ personal arrangements when you and Mr. Lupin here start interviewing maternal candidates for your own heirs,  mm?"

Sirius had the grace to look embarrassed at that.

"You loved him," Minerva McGonagall observed to Neville, disregarding that last. It was surprisingly approving. "Your Malfoy, that is. And he loved you."

"Not at first, no," Neville said. "But as the years passed... Yes. We grew to appreciate each other on far deeper levels than is strictly traditional. We'd not intended that aspect of the agreement as a long-term arrangement, only until Drake felt ready to pursue life and love again, but as he never remarried, wasn't naturally inclined to seek out casual partners, and as we two proved fundamentally compatible on all levels, we were together, in the end, till the day he passed, twelve years before I did. Toward the end of our official, political and familial arrangements... My wife and I did have our unanticipated son, yes, but as that son in turn ended up marrying Drake's niece-by-marriage, and as their first daughter, my first granddaughter, Astra, ended up marrying Drake's third great-grandson, Pollux, it all worked out quite as neatly as we'd anticipated."

Lily Potter rubbed her eyes.

"He's an Auror," she said. almost to herself. "Harry that is. _The_ Auror. Once he gets over the shock... He'll do his research. Once he's done that, he'll come to you, Neville, more than likely, and ask you if, and what, he missed on our world. In the meantime..."

"In the meantime?" Minerva McGonagall repeated. The look she cast at the woman was nothing short of unadulterated loathing. "In the _meantime_? Please, Mrs. Potter. Don't cut yourself off on account of  ignorance. It's never stopped you before, after all, in any world."

" _Min_!" Neil snapped, as Snape caught the infuriated Lily's wrist. She glared, but reseated herself with an inelegant thump as he reached out and firmly removed her raised wand from her clenched, skinny left hand.

"Later, my darling," he said. "This is not the time or place."

"You're saying," Bill Weasley said, loudly and abruptly.  "No. Wait. I reckon I need to get something  straight here. You're all saying that Master Cartwr... Harry... Ren... doesn't _know_ he's bent? Not just that he was never with Charles, because he was married to our - his - sister, but that he never _knew_? That he never realized it, even after Charles passed... up to the day he died?" He ran, not one, but both hands through his hair again. "That when I've asked him why he couldn't do it... mean it... When he helped Charles pass on in your world... And he hasn't answered, it's because he doesn't _know_ why?'

"Exactly," Neville said. "He's not homophobic, obviously..." He nodded to Remus and Sirius. "Not even a little. He never has been. He's just never self-identified."

"But... He kissed Malfoy, he..." Bill struggled.

"He. Will. Be. _Okay_ ," Lily said loudly, cutting off whatever anyone was about to say next. "He will be _okay_. This is _Harry_ we're talking about. He'll come back: he will, or we'll find him, wherever he is... And he'll be okay. He's okay, he's always, _always_ okay, always, _always_..."

Her voice rose even as she did, and then her wand was in her hand again, raised defiantly, anger, rage, fear and desperation all fairly radiating off of her as she stood, legs braced, crackling with magical energy... And in the split second that followed, her eyes seemed to  defocus, and she pointed the wand, not at Minerva McGonagall again, but straight at Neville himself. From his startled vantage point, Neville could see that her eyes were not just defocused now but dilated as huge black mirrors... And in that one split second, he saw, reflected in Lily Evans Potter's eyes, not his own reflection, but that of the constant, never-dying nightmarish face that had been her last vision before she died, and he realized that, when it came right down to it, there was one, only one reason that the woman before him had agreed to return from beyond the grave - to finish the job of protecting her baby that she knew, intellectually, she'd completed, but that she'd never lived to see the proof of herself.

"AVADA KED..."

No furious shining sword split the darkness, but a great half-beast reared, and a feral, earsplitting roar that, linked as the Headmaster's core was to the core of  Hogwarts herself, literally shook the walls of the castle. When the last echo faded, Lily Evans Potter lay crumpled on the stone floor, dazed, the splinters of her yet glowing wand scattered across the room. Snape was on his knees beside her, cradling her in his black-robed arms. The castle stilled abruptly as its Headmaster, just as abruptly and fully human again,  dropped into his chair and buried his face in his hands. For a long, long moment, he said nothing.

Then...

"Mrs. Potter," that Headmaster said. His voice was calm and quiet. "Mrs. Potter." Everyone in the room reared back, Snape hauling Lily along bodily, as Neville Longbottom removed his hands from his face and lifted his head.  The man's voice was calm... His eyes were not. There was nothing human left there, only rage: incandescent animal rage, glowing hot and molten gold. "Let me make myself clear. Let me make the problem - _our_ problem - here, perfectly, _perfectly_ clear. Lucius Malfoy - _Lucius fucking Malfoy_ \- has just teamed up with your son's perpetually-stuck-at-eleven, literally fucking closeted - no, _cupboarded_ \- psyche to out him in front of half the fucking world before he even realized he was bent himself. Harry might look thirty now, Mrs. Potter, but, psyche aside, he is _a hundred thirty nine years old_.  He's not your baby anymore: not eleven, not thirty... Not when it comes right down to it. He's nothing, when it comes right down to it and no matter the age of his psyche again, but a really, really tired, perpetually frightened old man. One who's been repressing for almost _fourteen decades_ now, thanks to a world that offered him up as psychological fodder for the biggest pair of racist, homophobic, magiphobic, abusive sociopaths in the history of all England, before hauling him back and reminding him of the fact that he was a freak of nature to be sacrificed as necessary - offered up again, in fact - on the altar of _their_ fucking Greater Good."

No one moved. No one breathed.

"And once he'd accommodated them," Neville continued in those same measured tones. "Instead of rewarding him with the right to live as he pleased, as he might have pleased, that same world effectively murdered the man your son might have been: that he could have been, that he _should_ have been, by turning him into the living embodiment of a fucking ghost. A reborn, active reincarnation of the dead father it had never gotten over, complete with their equivalent of _you_ , his sainted dead _mother_ , as his ghostly wife. That...That would have been more than enough right there, but it didn't stop there, did it, because, having done the job of disposing of their villain so well and effectively and repeatedly, the world assigned him a permanent job of Lord High Executioner-slash-Assassin-slash-Murderer: a job that literally went against his every instinct and inclination _again_ , because your son wasn't made into a Warder, Mrs. Potter, he was born one. Not just born to _be_ one, but born one. He was assigned a fucking _vocation_ by whatever God exists that comprises the _absolute opposite side of the coin_ of the vocation that the  world assigned him, and why, _why_ do you think it is that he's never let himself take the final exams there again? It's because he would have _passed_ , and been forced to recognize himself, to be acknowledged as, on the international level, as something he was never allowed to be, that he felt he had no right to ever allow _himself_ to be, because our fucking, fucking, _fucking_ world told him that he had no right, _no fucking moral right,_ to live his life as anything other than how _it_ fucking chose to define him."

"I.."

Lily cut herself off abruptly, shrinking back, not just at the sight of the eyes, but the raised, forestalling hand. The claws there curved, sharp and shining as swords on a dark battlefield.

"Hush, Mrs. Potter," Neville Longbottom said gently. "You weren't _there_. And I was, you see? I _was_. I. Was. _There_. And I was watching too, but as there was no veil between your son and me, as there was between the two of you... I saw the details. The small _, important_ details. The kind of details that don't just describe, but _define_. That define... Everything. _Everything_. And God's in the details, Mrs. Potter, oh yes He is; I've learned that well enough over my own hundred thirty nine years, but I learned one other, very important related lesson when I was training up as an Auror. I planned to be an Auror once; did you know that?  I always wanted to be an herbologist, but the world... It had plans for me too. And I followed them at first, because I thought I had no choice, but I was lucky. I wasn't as interesting as Harry was, so now and again, it - the world that is - would look away from me. Eventually it looked away long enough for me to slip away, out from under that defining eye,  but still, I was there, in Auror Camp I mean, long enough bring one very important lesson away with me, from one of the teachers there. He was a very good teacher, but more importantly, a very good man. A very smart man. He told me to remember, always to remember, to never, never, never forget... That where God is... There too is His opposite. As God's in the details... So too is His opposite."

He examined his claws, retracted them, extended them. Retracted them again. Curled his hand, the fingers tucked under, till only the index remained straightened: blunted, rounded, and eminently human save for the nail bed: yet matte black.

"It wasn't just him, though," Neville continued. "It didn't stop with him. It couldn't, because there was  Al to be thought on next. Albus Severus, my godson... Harry's second child. Your grandson. If the world tried to turn Harry into James and Gin into you, Mrs. Potter, they tried to turn Al into who they thought little Harry might have been. They were virtually identical, see? Al and Harry, that is. Barely a differentiating detail to be spared between them, and as a result, they spent half their lives locked in the agony of mutual hate, not for anything that either of them ever did to each other, but for something that neither of them had any more control over than the color of your blasted mutual eyes." The one black fingernail was slowly joined by nine others: all fading in rather than out, as revealed rather than healing bruises. "The really  ironic thing though? The real corker? The world assumed that _Al_ was bent. He and Scorpius Malfoy, my Drake's son... They had... they were... Both straight, but they were so close, always.  They loved each other so purely and absolutely that of course that's how everyone _would_ interpret it, right? It wasn't true, but there were all sorts of constant rumours, always: innuendo, titillation, excitement that the boy they'd assigned to be Little Harry Potter was a great secret poof, while his father, the real Harry, actually _was_ one. You talk about your mind-benders? When it comes right down to it, the only thing, the only rational explanation there for all of it, I think... Is that everyone, _everyone_ , whether they realized it or not... _Knew._ They _knew_ he was bent; the whole fucking world knew, but it forbade him to ever, ever even think on admitting it to himself, much less anyone else, because he had that preferred version of his life to live, in the directed role of the  Reincarnated Late, Great, and Oh-So-Straight James Potter. And today...".

Lily Potter sat on a chair, thin shoulders hunched, her head bent, tears pouring down her face and her dead wand in shards around her feet. In the quiet, the absolute quiet, there was nothing more in the room, in the world, but the sound of her weeping. The molten gold eyes faded back slowly to deep brown as Hogwarts'  Headmaster lifted  his head and looked her over... He suddenly looked, Augusta Domitia Claudia, Dame Lady Longbottom thought, every last day of his years: not the mere seventy three he displayed to the world, but the full hundred thirty nine... And just at that moment, and though she was quite aware that the man before her was not actually her grandson, she couldn't help but think that there was not a moment that she'd known him that he'd ever looked quite so much like his father. Augusta  Longbottom had to cover her own face at the realization that, if this.. _that..._ was how her Frank might have looked as a properly and mindfully lived man, she would forever be grateful to whatever God there was that she would, after all, be spared seeing it.

"Today, Mrs. Potter, " Neville Longbottom said finally and infinitely wearily.  "Never mind all that's been laid on him in the last two years:  in the last three weeks of these last two months of those two years in particular... Today, the bloody buggering equivalent _grandfather_ of the man that our world assigned as Not-Quite-Harry-Potter-But-Close-Enough-For-The-Designated-Shave's gay lover... laid one on him in front of an entire new world, and little _Actual_ -Harry's psyche, recognizing that it was in a new body with a new face, with the vocation he'd always been denied about to be handed him on a platter, had no reason... _no good reason_ , not _one_... To shut itself up in that proverbial closet any longer. Finally, _finally,_ after almost a hundred forty fucking _years_ , it pushed the door of the closet open, walked down the hall, and out the front door of its assigned birthplace: Number Four Privet Drive.... Forever. And now... It has no idea what's coming next. Absolutely none. The blood wards fell for good and all today, and all that's left of Harry Potter, once that eleven-year-old psyche of his hauled him out of the dark, is a frightened old man standing alone and exposed and with a very obvious hard-on for men under a sun, psychologically and cross-dimensionally, that he's never seen before. With three _thousand_ people as witnesses to the fact: three _thousand_ people who by this time tomorrow will have leaked his deepest, darkest secret to the entire planet - and you're telling me he's _okay_? No, Mrs. Potter. I think... I think it is fairly, _very_ fairly safe to say... Wherever he is right now... That your son is most definitely... definitely _not_... Okay."

 

 


	14. There Will Be Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lemons (tasteful lemons) ahead! 
> 
> Last chapter but one! Book Three: 'Solace' coming soon!

****

**_Somewhere in England_ **

**_Sunday Dawn_ **

**_November 23, 1991_ **

The young man - plain, if pleasant faced, with soft light brown hair, matching eyes, and a long faded white scar that ran from the corner of his left eyebrow all the way to his chin - lay naked and sleeping amid a tangled mess of sheets and blankets. He was positioned on his side, curled neatly: knees pulled to his chest and two wands beside him, half-rolled into the hollow created by his body on the cheap mattress. A heap of chimaera hide armor and its associated protective undergarments lay abandoned on the floor beside the bed, and a pair of dueling boots (one still standing, one lying empty-mouthed and speechless on its side) sprawled atop... A gold and black hand-knitted cap crowned the pile, the clumsily embroidered badger on its brim on its back, paws up and drooling slightly in its sleep.

A zipped Muggle backpack sat on the scarred and battered desk opposite. Beside the back pack lay a small book, bound in dark green. It was closed, with a discreet gold tassel attached to the spine and acting as its first bookmark. A  receipt from Flourish and Blotts lay next to it, and beside that an empty pizza box; grease-spotted, and with several crumpled napkins stuffed inside.

Images passed through Ren Cartwright's mind as dreams: memories of another life and another time: of a man, and another man, and then a woman too.

* * *

 

_“Meet me at the train,” he said. “At King’s Cross. When it’s my time?”_

_“I’ll be there,” Charlie promised. “If I can be.”_

_“Not good enough, Weasley. Promise me.”_

_“Wherever you are,” Charlie said after a moment. “I will be there. That... That I promise.”_

_Harry nodded choppily, and let the hate fill him. Hate for the pain, for the cancer, for fate or whimsy or... Whatever._

_In the end, he couldn’t do it. At the last moment, the very last moment, as the last syllable had left his lips... it had all faded away. A fine line, between hate and love... and in the end... He couldn’t walk it. He’d fallen, fallen, on the side of the light, as he always did, as he was fated to do, every single_ time, _and in the end... When he opened his eyes..._

_It had made no difference, after all._

_He’d gone home that night, and gotten drunk, and lost himself in his utter agony in Gin’s arms. In her body, over and over, and she’d just held him and kissed him and taken him even as he’d taken her, over and over as she drowned in her own pain. In the morning, as he’d knelt over the toilet, vomiting relentlessly, not from the alcohol but at the realization of what he’d done, she’d knelt beside him as he’d retched and wept, and put her arms around him._

_“Oh Harry,” she said. “Harry. Don’t.”_

_“If you tell me,” he said through his tears. “That it was the right thing to do... That one day it’ll be alright...”_

_“No,” she whispered. “No, it’ll never be alright. Never again. Not in this lifetime.”_

_In that moment, he loved her more than he had ever thought it possible to love another human being. He turned, covered in sick as he was, and took her in his arms, and she took him in hers, and they held each other, as they had and would through all the long years._

_“I love you so much,” he said into her long, flaming hair. “You really do understand... Everything, don’t you?”_

_“Lucky for you,” Gin Weasley Potter brushed her husband's own damp, sweaty hair back. “I really, really do.  Lucky for you.”_

_She helped him up then, and led him to the shower, and they washed each other up, and he’d lifted her again and taken her hard again, there against the tiled wall, and she wrapped her arms about his shoulders and her strong pale legs (freckles all the way down, too many to count because no matter how many times they played connect the dots, he always, always got distracted) around his waist, and it was good. It was always good. It always had been, even the first time, the dawn after the final battle when they’d met up quite by chance in the ruined halls by the prefects’ bathroom. They’d stared at each other for a single long moment before Harry hauled her inside, lifted her against the wall there, hastily adjusted their clothes, and  fucked her clumsily, fiercely and hard – as fiercely and hard as she’d fucked him - in their mutual shock and pain and relief. Later – a week or two later, when they’d had a chance to recoup and recover a bit, and to snatch a free moment, he’d wondered aloud if she regretted it... Had asked her if she did, as they’d walked hand in hand by the lake._

_“No,” Gin said definitely. “No. It was right. Not perfect, but_ right _. A fitting end to it all.”_

_“And a beginning?”_

_She just squeezed his hand._

_“Time enough to think on that. I still want to play professional Quidditch, and you know that if we get married, or even engaged, right away, Mum will never let up on the subject of grandchildren.”_

_“Yeah,” he said. And then, diffidently - "Did I hurt you? A lot?”_

_Sixteen year old Gin Weasley had laughed at that, a bit tiredly, but genuinely amused._

_“Harry,” she said. “Everything hurt. You’d just fought Voldemort to the death. I’d killed people. Half of our friends were - are - dead. Fred, Tonks, Remus, Snape, Colin... All dead. What_ didn’t _hurt? What still doesn’t?”_

_“I’m sorry. It wasn’t how I’d pictured our first time.”_

_“It was exactly how_ I’d _pictured it. The Dark Lord vanquished... Everyone safe: the living_ and _the dead.” She reflected on that for a moment. “Fred would make a_ really _ugly Inferi, yeah?”_

_“Yeah,” he’d conceded, and had pulled her down to the earth, on the far side of the lake, just inside a rather idyllic green copse that had somehow escaped the destructive fury of battle. “Wanna do it again?”_

_“Smooth, Potter." She'd embraced him enthusiastically, though, nevertheless... "Contraceptive spells? We lucked out the first time; the timing was all wrong, but we’d be really pushing it now.”_

_“Oh, please." Harry pulled out his wand. “With the amount of time over the years that I’ve spent in the hospital wing? The bloody pamphlets are everywhere there; Madam Pomfrey hands them out as bloody napkins with every meal, never mind as loo paper along with the bedpans.”_

_She’d sniggered, and kissed him under the sweet, warm sun.  Halfway through the act, a dragonfly had buzzed in and, most atypically, alighted on, and stung his bare arse. He’d yelped, and swatted, and Gin when she’d seen the source of his distraction, had laughed riotously. They’d fallen apart, giggling madly._

_“Charlie probably sent it,” she said. “He totally would.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Yeah. Stupidly protective, he is. More than all the others combined. He always has been. Be warned, Potter; he’s the first in a long line up of Weasley men who would literally lay down his life to ensure that you keep me happy.”_

_“Not a problem,” he’d said, and rolled her over on her back again. “Wow. You have a heck of a lot of freckles. And they really do go all the way down. Have you ever tried to count them?’_

_“It would take a lifetime."_

_“Uh huh,” He’d kissed the first as he’d conjured a bit more lube and settled over her again. “One... Two... Three...”_

_“Mm,” she’d moaned, jerking hard as he’d slid deep again, bending his head to lick and suck at  her  firm little breasts as he began to move  slowly and carefully within her. It was, he reflected, a lot less awkward when he wasn’t trying to keep his balance_ and _hers against a crumbling vertical wall. “That feels absolutely_ brilliant _, Harry... Also, not a freckle.”_

_“I got that, yeah. Bloody hell, woman; you made me lose count! One... Two...”_

* * *

Ren rolled on his back, his fingers searching out and closing around his wands even in his sleep. Opposite, the window was open. On the floor just inside the pane were several untouched scrolls of parchment, and several varied and drifting feathers. None of the parchment scrolls bore an address, just two identical words: his first and last name.

The room was freezing.  The light, faded silvery runes on the insides of his wrists glowed lightly.

A sharp, impatient tapping sounded at the window. Instead of shoving its burden through, the messenger tapped again, and screeched even more impatiently. Ren's eyes opened slowly. He turned his head toward the source of the disturbance. The messenger, as if sensing his renewed awareness, reared back and slammed its beak against the upper pane of the window. The glass didn't quite crack, but it was a close thing.

Ren untangled himself from the sheets and blankets, lifted himself off the bed, and made his way, still naked, to the window to take the parchment the owl offered. It didn't move: it had more than obviously been instructed to wait for a reply, no matter how long it took... Ren unsealed and unrolled the parchment, eyes moving slowly again over the words within.

 ** _Sirius is not dealing well with all this, Harry. I love you so much, you know that, but_** this **_much, at least, is not about you. Send a message back, now, if only to tell us that you're alive, or there will be repercussions, all around._**

**_Remus_ **

Ren flicked the tip of the longer wand- the female Horntail - and tossed the shorter on the bed as that tip morphed into that of a Muggle biro. He flipped the parchment over, and, using the wall as a table, wrote a single line. Signed his name, or rather his initials, rolled up the parchment, tapped it once with the wand, and handed in back to the owl.

"Return to sender," he said. His voice, naturally slightly husky now and perhaps a half-octave lower than it had been when he was Harry Potter - a light baritone rather than a firm tenor - was huskier and deeper than ever with sleep.  "No stops."

The owl very nearly rolled its eyes at him and took off again. Ren closed the window and bent to pick up the scrolls on the floor, carrying them all over to the desk and deposited them in an untidy heap beside the green-bound book. He picked the book up, leafing through the pages before carrying it over to the bed, wand still in his hand, and turning again to the tassel-marked page.

**The ancient tradition of Solace involves a proposed exchange of extremely specific courtesies between established, at-risk wizarding families. It is generally (though not exclusively) invoked in the aftermath of war or great personal tragedy, when a bereaved and effectively infertile family must deal with the fact that, having being left without viable heirs,  they have no means of continuing the line.**

**Continuance may be established in one of two ways: through legal adoption of a member of the preferred second-family candidate by the barren House, or, in an instance where both Head and spouse of the at-risk family are yet alive but prove unable, because of age, health or malevolent magics invoked upon said House by an enemy, to reproduce in the traditional manner, by personal physical proxy of the preferred family candidate on the body of the yet fertile spouse.**

Ren lowered the book and pressed his fingers to his eyes. In his mind's eye, he recalled again Narcissa Malfoy's cheek, and the small, light scar in the shape of a perfect, precise X - light enough to cover with Muggle cosmetics, certainly, in front of those whom she wished to avoid taking note, though yet bound, as the results of such malevolent magics were, to remain unaffected by magic.

He returned to his reading, or rather to his re-reading.

**The offspring, in either instance of conception, is considered a member of both families, and all parties involved are typically bound to raise it, or them, together. In light of this standard arrangement, the proposed union and exchange of favours between Houses is never offered as a gesture of mere and mutual convenience, but as an invitation to a permanent interfamilial alliance on all levels. As the title implies, the offering is seen as both gift and comfort to the affected family, and the  mere act of  requesting of that gift of another family line a great honour, in that a dying line is literally placing its future and well-being in the hands of that other. Such a profound gesture of genuine mutual affection, regard, and respect has never, and will never, be scorned on any level of civilized society, since there are none, and is no one, who can truthfully say that they are safe from such terrible and potential misfortune themselves.**

**Over time, and during times of peace, Solace has been recognized, not simply as a prudent  measure in times of emergency, but a way to ensure the continuance of a family line threatened for other reasons: a widowed and childless Head or Heir who is disinclined to marry again, for example, or in certain cases, a Head or Heir who is singularly disinclined to marry at all. In these specific cases, where the barren Head or Heir's family is disinclined to force the matter, they will approach a member of the selected preferred family privately and request of them, in exchange for a negotiated favour (never monetary) of equal value to the selected family, a proxy donation to the effectively barren Head or Heir so that they might yet secure their threatened House. Again, in this instance, the resulting child or children are considered legal members of both Houses, though typically, they are only assigned to inherit from the threatened family in order to prevent an imbalance of political influence and power. There have been, historically, at least two occasions where an disinclined-to-marriage Heir has been approached by the married Head of an infertile House, and requested of said disinclined Heir more than the singular proxy donation, in the interests of securing an Heir for each House.**

Ren put the book aside, and leaning down, pulled another, larger book ( _A Self-Updating Genealogy and History of the Major and Minor Houses of Wizarding Britain_ ) from where it had fallen half under the bed.

**HOUSE MALFOY**

** Head of House: Lucius Malfoy **

** Wife: Narcissa Black Malfoy **

** Current Heir (and only child): Draco Malfoy **

**_ Notes of Particular Genealogical Relevance/ Interest: _ **

**House Malfoy is rumoured to have suffered, in the aftermath of  Voldemort's War, a curse on its family line after their Head, Lucius Malfoy, a marked Death Eater who won his appeal of conviction on the _Imperio_ Defense, was again rumoured to have revealed to Aurors, after their vicious attack on Alice and Frank Longbottom, the location of their assailants: Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange, and Bartemius Crouch Jr. The rumour has never been confirmed by any official source, but as pertains to the validity of his criminal plea, it is worth noting that Malfoy was never conclusively identified or implicated as, or by, any civilian or any other  Death Eaters, exonerated or not, as an active participant in any Dark raids or revels at any point during the war. Too, from the time he returned to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in his sixth year after a student exchange in Castelobruxo School in North Brazil, no one has ever seen the man, once widely regarded as a potential International Master, duel. Instead, he has focused on projects, short and long-term, that employ his keen political and economic acumen toward the end of increasing his House's considerable assets ten times over since he took over as Head after the death of his father, Abraxas Malfoy. Analysts of his role as a Death Eater in Voldemort's war tend to come back to three possibilities there: that Voldemort valued him too highly as a strategic consultant to risk him, however talented, as a front-line fighter: that he was indeed, as his lawyers claimed in his trial, under _Imperio_ and managed to at least partially throw the effects on that regular basis when ordered to kill: or that Malfoy, while in Brazil, suffered some kind of experience, accident, or curse that permanently rendered him incapable of fighting effectively.**

**The rumour of the  curse on the Malfoy family line is just that, but again, it is worth noting two things: that Lucius and Narcissa Black Malfoy had been heard repeatedly discussing  before marriage and in public that they intended to have at least six children, and that their match, though technically arranged, is regarded as one of the greater love stories of the recent half-century. Any truly malevolent enemy would have taken note and realized that a curse of infertility there - particularly if only one of the couple were cursed - would be a curse twice over, for it would cause the Malfoys agony in that any solution provided them through such traditional measures as Solace, however socially acceptable and respected, would necessitate technical, if not social and legal adultery, and would cause them profound personal, not just politico-familial pain.**

Ren shook his head, wondering again just what, exactly, it was that Severus Snape, the most successful spy in their world's wizarding history, had been doing for the two years before his own return as Harry Potter, if not researching these rather important little differentials on his former colleagues... He put the book, open and face down on the bed, and dug under the pillow for a third ( _A Comprehensive Compendium of Catastrophic Curses_ ) and turned to the marked page there: the one with the illustration of the small, precise X.

**The Opprobrium Curse is very old. The primary intent is revenge; while it can potentially end the family line, it is generally cast in order to inflict extreme public embarrassment, shame and humiliation on the part of the husband as pertains to the measures necessary to effect the singular cure.**

**The effect of specific infertility is cast, not on the husband but on the wife, and renders her incapable of conceiving her husband's children. The couple may, of course, resort to measures such as Solace to sire family offspring by proxy, but even in that instance, the only way for the wife to become pregnant is if her husband, rather than she herself, participates in physical sexual intercourse with the male donor in question, as the recipient of the donor's attentions. After that, if said husband proceeds, within the time constraint of the singular hour, to have intercourse with his wife, she will conceive, but with the noted complication that the child will bear a marked family resemblance to both men. In this way, the public will become fully aware of the particular curse laid upon the family, and of the measures that the husband had to take in order to produce offspring. There too will be the public knowledge of the fact that the cure is only temporary - and that if, after the birth of the first child, the espoused couple wishes another, the husband must again subject himself to the donor's attentions.**

Ren closed the book and set it aside, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. More memories flashed through his mind: agonizing, confusing, and primal all... Fine skilled lips moving over his,  long elegant fingers threading through his hair as they rubbed soft soothing circles on his scalp, the slight scent (and taste)  of fine cigars complemented with a hint of Honeyduke's spiced chili-chocolate, a long, strong arm anchored about him, and that second hand splayed like a burning brand across his lower spine... In his memory, that hand heated his skin right through the flame-proof chimaera hide as it pressed him close, snugging him securely between long braced legs and the very, very, very, _very_ definite and absolute mutual proof of purely masculine arousal.

Ren squeezed his eyes shut. If it hadn't been for the tilted curve of those lips, Lucius Malfoy might very well be dead right now. But the curve _had_ thrown him, and the fingers in the hair and the soft and soothing circles, and then... And then...

His shields had dropped. _Lucius  fucking Malfoy_ had dropped his fucking _shields_ , his fucking _mental shields_ , fully and simply and completely. _Intentionally_. Deliberately, leaving his mind and motives and every single memory that defined him over his lifespan open and vulnerable and free for examination, and Ren hadn't looked, _of course_ he hadn't looked: the invitation was the thing, after all, but then again, perhaps there was no 'of course' about it, because that had been the moment that Malfoy had shifted his weight just slightly, hand still on his lower back, and Ren's brain (if not, and very, very obviously at least to Malfoy, certain other bits of him) had taken its abrupt and absolute and irrevocable turn south and quite literally threatened to melt along with his knees.

After that...

First order of business after dropping Sirius and Remus off at the Headmaster's office had involved a quick crack back to his own quarters in the Sett. Ren hadn't even bothered with the sofa, much less the bed; he'd just dropped his satchel, braced one hand against the closest wall and shoved the other down the front of  his chimaera hide trousers. Strung as he was after the last three days, never mind the post-duel endorphins, he'd slammed his mind's eye firmly shut against any and all images, allowing himself only the one remembered and recalled sensation - the firm, gentle soothing thumb on his scalp as he rubbed his own thumb,  just once, around the head of his straining, panicked cock.

When he'd recovered (somewhat) he'd hauled himself up, spelled himself clean, staggered to the bedroom, stuffed a few items in the Muggle backpack, cast a quick full-body glamour, and cracked out again, straight to Flourish and Blotts. Even in his incapacitated emotional state - perhaps especially in his incapacitated state - his inner Auror managed to keep his priorities straight for him. Three books and a third crack later, he was checking into one of said Auror's favoured equivalent safe-houses, locking the door of his room behind him...

Back in the present moment, Ren Cartwright swiveled around and lay back on the thoroughly tumbled sheets. He had managed to make it to the bed that time before the mindless storm rose again... He'd even managed to get his trousers off, though the tunic had only followed ten minutes later.

There were definite advantages to being thirty again, he'd reflected in the near-catatonic aftermath of that frenzied blinding first hour in the motel room. Never mind those hundred twenty years of training as an Occlumens. That long, and with that much practice in the subject, The-Ren-Formerly-Known-as-Harry-Potter was quite capable of suppressing his mind and psyche's attempts to Forcibly Discuss His Obvious Issues in favour of his rational brain's demands to find out, as soon as possible, Just What The Bloody Buggering Fuck Just Happened Back There. _That_ being determined, Ren Cartwright had heaved himself up, gone to the loo, taken a long, scalding shower, returned to the desk, picked up the telephone, ordered himself an extra-large bacon and pepperoni pizza from the take-away number on the list under said phone, and, finally, hauled on a pair of khaki cargo trousers from the backpack before sitting himself down in the chair and cracking the first book on the pile.

Sixty minutes of reading and the entire delivered pizza later, Ren had stripped off the khaki trousers, stuffed them back in the pack, and returned to the bed. This time, though, he'd just pulled the blanket over his soft, light brown hair and buried his head under the pillow... It seemed, under the circumstances, he thought, even as he'd slipped into a deep, dark void, the appropriate thing to do. He'd been fairly certain once he woke again that it would no longer be an option no matter how appealing he found the idea, but for the current moment, he'd been more than inclined to take what he could get.

* * *

 

Ren set the third book aside and lay back again, arranging the sheets and pillows somewhat more decorously as he did so. He found his mind self-easing again, as it had on his walk from the Astronomy Tower down to the stadium, emptying itself as it always did in preparation for battle. He tucked one arm under his head, pausing as he did so to run his own hand through the soft brown mass. It even felt different, he thought, than his hair had before his transformation. Softer, finer: not nearly as rough and frankly, _un_ refined.... It was, frankly, a change that he liked. He'd spent a large portion of career as an Auror running his hands through his original hair, and there had, after the point, been nothing soothing about it... All wild tangle and stark black, and again, the coarse, rough texture.

Ren lifted the blanket and looked under. As per the photo in the Prophet, his chest hair was completely gone. He liked that too; Gin had always had that profoundly  irritating post-coital habit, once his hair had started turning, of taking advantage of her habitual contented draped position across said chest, never mind his own bleary-brained lassitude, to yank out the stray greys. He removed his arm from under his head and held it up for examination. Light brown, rather than pale, with soft golden dusting rather than the stark and contrasting black again. There was a bit of a metaphor, he reflected... His life had always been just so black and white as Harry Potter, with, of course, the exception made for his fucking green eyes. Avada Kedavra eyes: black hair, white skin, all coloured only, absolutely and utterly, by death.

Ren Cartwright had not had a lot of time to examine the changes in his body in the last few weeks. This was, he thought, as good an opportunity as any... He spread his fingers, examining them, and his hands, closely. They were definitely wider, the fingers still long, but not quite as long as they had been. They looked, to his not-green eyes, stronger than they had before. More solid: designed not just to reach and grab a fleeting snitch, but to catch and bear the solid weight of a quaffle headed full speed for the targeted hoop.

**_"What position do you play?" another Chaser - Summersby - demanded._ **

**_"Bit of everything but Keeper. For some reason, no one will ever let me ward the hoops, and there goes my advantage right there."_ **

Ren flipped the blankets back and sat up. His legs... Now there was a definite, _definite_ improvement. He'd never quite outgrown his knobby knees, and his entire lower body, frankly, had gone a bit Baba-Yaga-chicken-leggy in his old age. No knobby knees here, just smooth solid powerful and proportionate sculpted muscle from hip to foot. Legs designed to balance and support him for hours on end on a broomstick: not sitting, nor toward the end of a game, but standing at varying heights as he cast double-handed spells, again for hours, toward the end of everything _but_ games... A good Warder's most important tool, next to his wands, of course, was always his broomstick. Nothing flashy like a Firebolt: good in a chase and for diving and cutting corners and pursuing fleeing Dark Wankers... No,  proper Warding brooms weren't designed for games at all. They were an entire separate species altogether, and utterly useless for Quidditch or racing. They were built to support and hold, for stability and their ability to withstand anything, magical or otherwise (including lightning bolts and the occasional rampaging dragon) thrown their Warder's way... Professional Quidditch players and racers scorned sticking charms on principle; the risk was, to them, again as the first Sirius had once said of James, part of the fun, but those few companies that specialized in Warding brooms pursued developments there with the avidity and excitement of your average eleven-year-old school boy swapping out Chocolate Frog Cards. In his old life, Harry Potter had always had two brooms, one for his work as an Auror, and one for his favoured 'hobby'. The second had always and easily, _easily_ cost ten times as much as the first.

Next, Ren flexed and examined his feet. Pianists and seekers valued their long, quick fingers. Warders... Warders were obsessed with their arches and toes. Balancing on broomsticks was one thing, but when you worked primarily in bare feet, long, agile toes and appropriately shaped arches made things considerably more comforting and comfortable there.

He lay back once more, tucking his arm behind his head again as he adjusted the blankets. Feet, legs, chest, hands, hair... He rolled his eyes at himself, if only internally, and lifted the sheets again, propping himself up on his elbow as he examined the evidence. Nothing much changed there: still quite respectable - a bit thicker, maybe, if no longer, and that being said, he'd never had that little bend before. Ren Cartwright sighed soundlessly as his inner Auror, never mind his memory of a grown Tamsin Applebee, smirked gently at that last, and his mind flashed back again to the dais and the sensations of Lucius fucking Malfoy's hair flowing around his hands like smooth liquid silk as he dug his hands in, and the shape of his skull under his hands... Then there had been the taste of his curved lips and mouth, dizzying with that slight aftertaste of fine cigars and spiced chocolate as Ren slammed his own mouth against them and drove his own tongue in an invitation, or rather in blatant challenge, to set his feet and fucking duel for it like a fucking _man_ , and finally, the solid, hard planed wall of his body against Ren's own  and the hot, unbearably pleasurable, purely primal sensation as Malfoy's hand  splayed across his lower back and hauled him against his...

Ren Cartwright moaned, rolling over and pulling his pillow over his head again. His hand reached out and went unerringly for his wand. His actual wand. His fingers closed around it.

/Gin?/

**/Yes, Harry?/**

He hadn't expected her to answer...  And yet, somehow, he had. Maybe it was real, and maybe her voice, at least this time, was his imagination or a manifestation of his psyche after all... But that didn't seemed to matter _at_ all. He pressed his face to the mattress and closed his eyes tightly.

/I think.../

He paused.

**/Yeah?/**

/Would you be terribly upset... Please don't be upset, it's not about you, honestly, and none of it was a lie, I swear, none of what we had, and never anything of it to you, anyway.../

Harry squeezed his eyes shut even tighter.

 **/Go on,/** his wife’s voice prompted.

/I think... I think, Gin, upon considered reflection.../

 **/Go on,/** she prompted again.

/IthinkthatImightjustbealittlebitbent./

**/Okay. So how long did you last in the duel yesterday?/**

/ _What?_ /

**/Your duel. I was trying to watch, but the bloody Horntails were being too bloody loud and swooning about like they do, especially after you went down, so I couldn't hear the announcer. Well?/**

/Erhm... Thirty nine twelve, against a hundred twenty from beginning to end. I probably would have made it to forty five, but like you said, they wouldn't shut up. Gin? You _did_ hear what I said, didn't you?/

 **/Yes of course,/** his wife's voice said matter-of-factly, and maybe she was his imagination, and maybe it wasn't, but at that point, the Ren-Formerly-Known-As-Harry was too bemused to really care. **/But I already knew that, Harry, so I thought I'd ask for the answer to a question I was actually curious on, rather than wasting what little time we've got left confirming a fact that I already knew./**

/What? _What?_ How could you _know? I_ didn't even know! Not till Lucius fucking Malfoy planted one on me in front of three fucking thousand people!/

This time, it was her turn to pause.

 **/I beg your pardon?/** she said politely.

/Missed that one too, did you?/

**/Shut up, Potter. I'm dead. You wouldn't know it, because you've never made it all the way, but that bloody buggering veil? It obscures a lot of really important details. So? How was it? How was _he?_ Also, Draco is totally laughing his arse off here.  Quote unquote, addressed to his father, not you: DOESN'T THAT JUST EXPLAIN SO VERY, VERY MUCH. Also, he sends a big wet sloppy kiss to Neville, and one to you too, and says to tell you that, quote unquote again, 'Re. Astoria: all is now forgiven, Potter, on all fronts: forever and ever and ever. Thank you ever so much for making me cry, tell Beorn that his Babbity loves him, and have  a nice re-life. Granger-Weasley says not to forget to floss." Check your window, Harry./ **

/Huh?/

**/Check your window. Incoming. Gotta go. Wait. Was it good, at least?/**

/What?/

**/The kiss, of course.  Mm. Lucius Malfoy. _Such_ a hottie. At least your version of him, anyway; ours may look the same, but he's still a git. _So_ not attractive, and everybody says death has improved him, but between you and me and the cross-dimensional gatepost? I just don't see it./**

The line, such as it was, abruptly clicked. Ren removed his head from under the pillow, and glared at the wand.

"Weasleys," he muttered, and untangling himself, swung his legs over the side of the bed... Across the room, beneath the open window, an envelope, rather than a scroll of parchment, was floating to the floor, a single great black feather along with it. He crossed the room and bent to pick it up. It was thicker than he expected, as thick as a paperback. A single word, not two, was scrawled across the front in plain blue biro.

**DASH**

Ren sat down right there, hard on the floor, staring at the package in his hand, all amusement and bemusement abruptly gone. In that one moment, all thoughts of Lucius Malfoy fled his mind and memory as if burned to ash, and the terror he had felt on the dais returned tenfold.

* * *

 

He sat on the floor, naked, staring at the single word: his mind returned to the hot, melted white morass it had been reduced to on the dais. He had no sense of time at all; it could have been a minute, or an hour, or even a day, before in the midst of all his renewed panic, a small, still voice sounded.

 **"As much as I sense that you really just want to be happy,"** the Sorting Hat observed gently in his memory **. "Hufflepuff won't do that for you. They're... _Persistent_ when they get their minds fixed on the idea that one of their own needs protecting. They'll protect you even from yourself."**

 _Shut up,_ he thought at the voice, terrified _. ShutupshutupshutUP!_

 **No,** the Sorting Hat said gently again **.  Not this time, Mr. Potter. Not this time. Your time's up, you see? The admission is one thing... But what worth the admission, if you choose the wrong House to be going on with? The House, that, though worthy, will not force you to make your real stand, but will yet allow you to protect yourself _from_ yourself?  I didn't send you there because you actually belonged there, you know, no matter your name. I sent you there because in the end, _you_ have to be the one to make the final decision. Have you not processed yet - have you _truly_ not processed - the implications of what everyone, everyone,  has been so astutely, astutely observing all along: that I never actually said you _belonged_ in Hufflepuff? I only sent you there so that everyone there would take care of you while you took the bit more time you'd need to literally Sort _yourself._**

_ShutupshutupshutupSHUTUP!_

**No.** The voice was gentle yet, but absolutely immovable. **No, Mr. Potter. Hat's off now. Armor's off. It's just you and me now, naked and alone in a designated safe-house in the middle of nowhere. No one here but you and me. No, that's not quite true either, is it? I'm still back in the Headmaster's office. That means...**

_SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUT **UP**!_

**That it's just you after all. You and your choices. Admittedly, this version of Lucius Malfoy seems very nice, and certainly after that little display, no one would think twice if you chose to ally yourself with his House would they? You'd be respected, honored, trusted, and heck, you'd even get another cute sprog or two out of it, never mind all of the indubitable political benefits of Longbottom, Black and Malfoy being allied in the upcoming war. But in the end... Would whatever you do with him... Be anything _real_? Defining? _Definite_? Or would you just be the grieving widower after all, the perpetual once-husband of a tragically cursed _woman_ , providing Solace to a family who, in return, would offer you everything Harry Potter could ever want... A proxy mother for your children, proxy children - maybe even ones with your hair and eyes; wouldn't that be nice, again - parents who absolutely adore each other and available at every turn to make up for whatever it is that you're lacking there -and a really hot, coincidentally male, bedmate that you ever so kindly and magnanimously - and in a public, socially respectable context yet! - would have to consent to shag every time he and his wife wanted another one - six, at least, wasn't it - to add to their pile?"**

Ren tried to bring up his hands to cover his eyes.

**Mm. Stubborn one, aren't you. Let's go back a little further, then. All the way back, and quite relevant to where you’re sitting right now – where you’ve _chosen_ to sit right now - to that very first crucial question: the implications of which, over the years, absolutely everyone - even the Great Godric Almighty Dumbledore - seemed to miss your first time around. That question, that one unanswered question, that was never answered to your satisfaction. No, that should have been asked _you_ , so that _you_ could answer it. **

**When is a safe-house... Not a safe-house, Mr. Potter?**

_Please. Please. Shut_ up. _Please, please, please. I'll be good, I'll be good, don't, don't.. I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it, it was an accident, I'm not a freak, I'm not, i swear i swear i swear, i'm_

 **No, Mr. Potter,** the Sorting Hat’s voice said sorrowfully. **You are not a freak. You never were. And to answer the question, your question of when is a safe-house not a safe-house...**

**Is when the real enemy, Mr. Potter... Your _real_ enemy... The one that has to die at your _own hand_ , who cannot, _cannot_ be allowed to survive if you want to actually, finally, finally, finally _live_... **

**Is _inside_ your warded walls.**

Ren blocked his ears.

 **You only have two hands, Mr. Potter,** the Sorting Hat observed. **You can cover your ears, but you will still see. You can cover your eyes, but you'll yet hear. If you wanted the ability to prevent both, you should have thought on it while you were up in the Room of Requirement asking for your do-over. For it to... Hmm. You know, I don't think you've quite processed this bit either, have you? The Room could have made you look like anything. Anyone, as long as you didn't look like you did back home. Why do you think it was then, that it chose, or rather, _you_ chose-  because your body's your House, and we've determined, haven't we, that you do choose your House... the form of Lawrence Cartwright?**

For one second... One second, the white morass receded, and Ren was simply confused, truly bemused and drawn outside his own agony and terror by the peculiar and unexpected question.

 **Neil,** the Sorting Hat’s voice mused. **Means Champion. Rather appropriate, really, if you think about it, the particular man considered. Lawrence, on the other hand, means 'a man from Laurentum', and Laurentum, in turn, is derived from the Latin 'laurus', or laurel. Laurels, otherwise known as accolades, or due regard... You asked the Room of Requirement, Mr. Potter, to make you a man defined by his own due regard, and as for your chosen surname... Augusta Longbottom chose it originally, yes, but when the offered shoe fits, what beggar turns it down? A man defined by due regard... Followed, Mr. Potter, by a world, or rather a cart, set right. Cartwright. Cart. Right. A new world, as a new man, one who might receive his proper due, his proper accolades for who _he chooses to be_. Not what others expect him to be. I'm sensing a rather recurring theme here, Mr. Potter, and didn't I tell you straight up, straight _up_ , when you reseated yourself on my stool, that just because people expect something of you doesn't mean you have to go along with what they have in mind?**

Ren said nothing.

 **You have a rather important choice to make just now,** the Sorting Hat said. **Hufflepuff or Gryffindor... Potter or Cartwright... Malfoy, or...**

It didn't finish the sentence, and it was not actually  there, in any instance, to make its nod toward the package still held loosely in Ren's hand, but Ren looked down anyway, at the single word printed there in plain blue Muggle biro.

**DASH**

**_"Best way to send a message over long distances, Patronuses, but I guess you know that."_ **

**_"What is it?"_ **

**_"A hummingbird," Charlie said in disgust. "A bloody pretty, mincing little_ ** **hummingbird."**

With one quick, abrupt movement, Ren tore the envelope open. A battered paperback book, cover half torn off, fell into his naked lap. He ignored it, removing the single sheet of lined Muggle notepaper, filled on both sides with a hurried, sloppy familiar scrawl.

**Dear Ren,**

**Bill told me everything that happened yesterday. He also said that Neil told him a bit about you and your life afterwards, both before and after I died, when he went to him and told him about me, and that we both know, and asked what was going on and why you reacted the way you did with Malfoy (big melodramatic git, I swear, I SWEAR he was a Horntail in a former life, but in case you're wondering, he's not so bad here at all, so you don't have to worry that it's a trap). I'm so, so sorry, mate. I know how scary this must be for you. I know. I promise, I _promise_ , we'll sort it all out. Alone, because really, when it comes right down to it, it's nobody else's goddamned business. Just send a note back from wherever you are, whenever you're ready, and I'll make sure Billy's out. For right now though...  From my point of view, there are two things you do need to know now.**

**I remember everything. I haven't told Bill how much, because he's been so busy with you this week and I've been processing anyway, but it's all come back since Wednesday**. **It's  like I’m two people now, and though my old personality is becoming dominant  -and that only makes sense really, since my body's nineteen here, and I was forty when I died back home - it's still bloody confusing and scary. Not nearly as confusing and scary as I know things must be for you, and I know it doesn't make things any easier right now, but I want you to know this second thing. The most important thing. However it falls out, however you sort things out, whatever you're feeling... You need to know this. And however selfish it is _... I_ need you to know.**

**I was in love with you most of my adult life. Fell half way, I guess, not long after the battle, when you spent that summer with my family while we all worked on Hogwarts and we all mourned Fred. I invited you to the Reserves after, when everyone just wouldn’t leave you alone, and Gin was in her last year at Hogwarts. Looking back... It was a really stupid move on my part. It gave me the opportunity to  fall all the way. And I did. Couldn’t help myself. Didn’t even try, really.**

**In the family... Gin knew, eventually anyway. Bill knew, right from the start. Oh, and yeah... In case you're wondering... Ron knew too, the big prat. He found me after your wedding reception crying my eyes out into my beer, which was probably why he was so conflicted on the subject his entire life. It wasn't so much that he was homophobic  - and no, he wasn't gay himself; Billy told me that you told him that Neil told you he was, but he wasn't. He just loved both me and Gin, and knew we both loved you, and you loved both of us, and he couldn't figure out how it could all work out, so he projected on the issue itself, especially after your kids were born and I got sick. I never took it personally, you know? Chess master that he is, he kept trying to find a way out, and couldn't manage it. For what it's worth... In the end, he knew about the plan. He said to tell you he loves you, and always did, and always will.  Don't hurt your head trying to figure the chronology  out, you've got enough to be going on with there. In the end... It all came down to Al and Scorpius, and Nott's bloody time turner.  Turns out Hermione never threw it out after she popped back to tell me what happened with it (Minister of Magic? I KNEW IT), just snuck it out of her office after she retired, and kept it for a rainy day. That girl, eh? God love her; between you marrying Gin and Ron nabbing her, it's no wonder I never looked seriously at anyone else. Not that I looked at her, but you know what I mean. I always did like the big scary ones best.**

**Which leads me to the next thing. I told you in that letter, about the Horntails, that they can shag other dragons, but that they never mate with anyone other than another Horntail. I shagged a lot of women, especially after I was diagnosed and while I still could manage it, but after I fell for you, never another man. For better or worse again, whenever I called you ‘mate’, it’s what I meant. It’s how I still feel. How I always will feel. And in the interests of full disclosure... Here, before I remembered, before you came back, before I saw you in the hospital... It was the same way. A few women, and yeah, okay, there were a few blokes I've eyed up, but I never shagged any of those. Was attracted to them, sure, both at school and at the Reserves, but could never seal the deal. That was, and has always been, no matter my life, if only on instinct here till now... Yours.**

**There's a lot more. A lot more that you don't know, that you can't. Stuff about the ritual, how I got here, and the Horntails again - it's all down to them, really. I told  you, that last day when you helped me pass, remember, that a couple of them owed me a favour? In the end... It's important to know this... They offered. I didn't ask. I wouldn't. They _offered_. And when I tell you the rest, when we tell you the rest; the three of us - they're still the ones offering.  It's important though, that I tell you those details in person. It's just not safe any other way. **

**On a personal note, and I know this is rushed, and that you're scared, but I'm scared too, but while you're sorting things out, and who you are, and what you're feeling... Put this in the equation, okay? I think it’s good, really, that you look different here. That you have a different name, even. It would be a lot harder if you didn’t.  A part of me will always shy away from the fact that you married Gin and had kids with her, as Harry. You were her Harry. Here, if you want... If it’s what you want... And you don't have to say it now, or decide now, or anything now, but if and when we get to that point... You can be my Ren.**

**Your**

**Charlie**

**P.S. Pg. 141. See underlined section. J. Alfred, at least from my perspective, has had his day.**

Letter still in his hand, Ren picked up the battered second-hand paperback. He turned it over and back.

"The Selected Works of T.S. Eliot," he read aloud, and despite himself, his lips quirked a little at the corners... He leafed through to page 141. The indicated section was bracketed in the margin, in the same blue ink as the letter. His indrawn breath literally stuck in his throat as read the first few lines, but he struggled through the rest, tears suddenly pouring down his cheeks. The page of the letter fell to the floor. He doubled over, the book falling too. The wand next to him, brushing his bare hip, and the one still sitting on the bed hummed softly at him. Still bent over, he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes as a third voice joined them. Burned behind them.

_I trust you. Trust me. This isn’t death you’re giving me, I promise. I **promise.** It’s not death. It’s life. And it has to be you._

_It’s always been me. But this... This is too much, it’s..._

_You’re right, Charlie's voice whispered. It’s always been you. Always. And for better or worse... It always will be. Now kiss me goodbye, like a good mate, and let me go. It’ll only be for a little while, I prom..._

"No," Ren Cartwright whispered. "No. No, no, no, no, _no_."

And he was on his feet, a blur as he crossed the room and hauled out his khaki cargo trousers, along with a plain brown t-shirt. He pulled them on, stuffing letter and book each in a pocket along with his wands... It was but the work of another moment to jam the armor and the gold and black knitted cap inside his back pack - for it, when it came right down to it, like him, only looked Muggle - to spell socks on his feet, and to jam his feet in his dueling boots. The three books from Flourish and Blotts and the pile of parchment scrolls followed. Ren started to close the pack, then dug in and fished out the hat, jamming it on his head. The badger snored... Even as he swung the half-open backpack to his shoulder, there was a tap at the window.

"Oh, for bloody buggering bollocking _sakes_ ," Ren said aloud in disgust, and strode over, grabbing the scroll from the startled Great Horned Owl, not bothering to look at it or stuff it in his pack. Three seconds later there was a loud, decisive crack... Two seconds after that, he was hammering on the door before him. There was a confused murmur of muffled voices from within, and the door opened. The room was filled with people: Sirius and Remus, Minerva and Augusta, Lily and Snape, Neville and Bill... Ren ignored them all, pushing past them to the startled man sitting on the sofa.

"Ren? What..."

"I don't _care_ ," Ren Cartwright said to the man before him without preamble. "I don't _care_ what you are. I only care about _who_ you are. The rest... The rest I can ... No, _we_ can sort out later. Right now though, the only thing that matters is that you're here right now, and I'm here right now, and  the page has turned, and you love me, and I love you, and I'm never, never, _never_ fucking saying goodbye to you again, not in this lifetime, not in _any_ lifetime, not...

And Charlie Weasley surged to his feet and grabbed him by the hair, shoving his hands under the black and gold wool cap to seize double fistfuls of soft brown and haul him in. It was messy, wet, sloppy and desperate, with no demonstrated elegance or skill, no gentleness, no...

Ren broke away, gasping for breath.

"Fuck _me_ ," he said wholeheartedly, and dove back in again. The scroll he was holding fell from his hand and rolled to Sirius' feet. His father bent to pick it up automatically, unable  (as was everyone else present) to tear his startled, saucered eyes away from the two men before him.

"Bloody wanker," Charlie said to Ren when he pulled away. His face was wet with tears. "You scared the bloody buggering _shit_ out of me. I thought..."

"What part," Ren Cartwright said, hauling him back again  and punctuating each word with rough kisses all over his face even as his hands roamed.  Sirius actually squeaked. "Of 'fuck me' didn't you hear, Weasley? Bedroom. Now."

"Ren. Christ. Argh... Stop." Charlie said, and disengaged firmly but gently. Ren's hands dropped. "Don't take this the wrong way, mate.. But... No. Not yet."

"What? Why not?"

"Aside from the fact that my brother and your fathers, grandfather, cousin, ex-Transfiguration professor, mother _and_ her boyfriend are all standing right _here_?"

"Aside from."

"Because you're going to marry me first. Before you go meet up with the Malfoys on Wednesday for tea, and if you're going to marry me before then, we might as well do everything right."

"Um. What?" That actually seemed to clear his head a little. He blinked at him.

"Proper protocol," Bill volunteered from his position supporting the wall near the kitchen door.  "Totally different set of rules there than if you visit them as unmarried man. You _did_ do your research right?"

"To a point," Ren admitted after a moment. "That point where I realized that _Lucius fucking Malfoy_ essentially invited me to bugger his arse in front of three thousand people."

"Oh, there was no 'essentially' about it," Augusta Longbottom said calmly from her seat in Bill's armchair "He and Narcissa have been searching for the right candidate for almost ten years now, ever since they were cursed, poor things. The line ups of volunteers there have been quite epic."

"Poor... _What_? What? You _want_ me to...  _What_?"

"How else are we going to have our own half-dozen kids? Lay eggs? Whole new world, mate," Charlie said blithely. 'Couple of the same Dark Wankers to take care of, and a new few too, but when it comes right down to it, that's all that _is_ the same. And okay, yeah, I know what you're going to say; there's a war coming, but we've survived that before, and we're supposed to stop living in the meantime? Been there, done that, and... Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.  No worries, though; we'll sort it all out. Together. I grew up here, after all."

"Uh," Ren said, and sank on the sofa. Charlie sat beside him.

"Pup?" Sirius said tentatively. "Erhm?"

"Uh?" Ren turned. Sirius held out the scroll.

"It's from the International Masteries Board," he said. "Only... It wasn't supposed to arrive till Monday, and that's not till tomorrow, so..."

The sudden silence in the room was absolute. Sirius came over and sat on the arm of the sofa, handing the furled scroll over.

"I'm sorry I ran off like that," Ren said to him inadequately as he took it. "Only I was a bit surprised, you know?"

"It's okay." Sirius leaned over and kissed his forehead gently. "Are you alright now?"

"I'm alright with this bit. Right in this moment. I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow though. Or the day after that."

"Ah well. What can you do. One day at a time, eh?”

"Wasn't that curse cast on the Malfoys intended to embarrass them?" his son asked, diverted. "You're telling me everybody knows, and is _alright_ with it? That he isn't embarrassed?"

"Nah.That curse was invented seven hundred years ago, yeah? Times change, and social mores evolve along with them, and okay, there are still a few sticklers here and there who'll try to convince you that you should be embarrassed and/or ashamed for  the fact - Abraxas Malfoy, Luke's father, was one of them, which is probably why whoever cast the curse thought it would humiliate him in that they figured the son would share the father's views - but he's never had any issues that way. He's just always been so in love with Niss that he's never looked at anyone else, male or female."

"But I thought you didn't like them! The Malfoys, I mean!"

"It's complicated, pup. Families do tend toward that, yeah, and things are a lot less complicated there now, or are looking as if they might fall out that way anyway, now that Bellatrix is dead. She kind of held the whole extended family and our mutual relationships hostage to her insanity, even from Azkaban and never mind the fact that she was Riddle's girlfriend, right, but now that she's gone, things are shifting up a bit.  I'll give you the full history lesson there later, but for now..."

"Right, right." Ren collected himself, snapped the seal, and unfurling the parchment, began to read.


	15. Till Human Voices Wake Us and We Drown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Epilogue coming before Dec. 1. 
> 
> The selection from the poem Charlie referred to on p. 141 of his version of 'The Selected Works of T.S. Eliot' was 'Little Gidding'. Read the chapter first! :)
> 
> I can't tell you - even begin to tell you - what all your support and kind comments have meant to me over the last two books. xoxoxox. You all make my heart happy. :)
> 
> Blue Maple

**259 Bolingbroke Court, Flat B**

**Monday Morning**

**November 24, 1991**

 

Ren woke slowly, face down on the quite ridiculously warm and comfortable battered sofa. From the loo came the rush of water and rattling of pipes, and from the kitchen, a rather delectable smell of pancakes, bacon and coffee.

His stomach growled hugely. Struggling in the tangle of borrowed sheets and blankets, he fought his way up to a sitting position, rubbing his eyes sleepily. Said eyes fell on the roll of elegant, cream-coloured parchment, complete with the distinctive, now-broken seal, that lay on the coffee table.  Ren reached over to retrieve it, unfurling it and sitting back to reread the words within again, with wondering bemusement and as yet tentative, but surely settling, belief and joy.

 

**_To: Master Lawrence Domitian Cartwright, I.M. DADA, I.M.Combat Dueling_ **

**_From: The International Masteries Board_ **

**Dear Master Cartwright,**

**We of the International Masteries Board are pleased to inform you that, after due consideration and careful review of the memories provided us upon request by you and Mr. William Arthur Weasley, we are revoking the necessity for your last two Warding exams. It is our unanimous decision that your actions in Brazil, namely a) the design, construction and implementation of a permanent mass-scale,  double-sided creature-specific  standard  and bio-runic  warding fence that simultaneously incorporates and responds to underwritten, adapted and original wand-triggered warding spells,  and b) your mass destruction of the lethifolds themselves and the neutralizing of their original spawning grounds, provide more than sufficient materials for an overall assessment of your abilities as a potential International Warder.**

**We are also pleased to inform you that you have passed your initial examination of International Standard Runic Theory and Runic Wards Construction at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and that your practical examination in International Standard Spell-Cast Warding yesterday, as well as your demonstrated research and development in the field you call bio-runics, have surpassed the highest of our expectations on every level.**

**It is therefore our great privilege and joy to inform you that we are, and again as of this date, awarding you your International Mastery in Runic and Spell-Cast Warding, with the singular and additional and by no means merely honorary  titular addition of Grandmaster, or, as it is called in the specific context of Warding, Master-Adept. We will be investing you formally on Yuletide Eve in your home country, at the headquarters of the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA) in New York City. A letter detailing the arrangements there will follow this one shortly.**

**All reports, analyses and explanations of all original spell-work and research shall be submitted to the Board no later than December 15 th of this year. Too, we would be extremely interested in hearing just how it was that you managed to produce and maintain five hundred full-sized corporeal Patronuses for a period of twelve straight hours.**

**Our sincerest congratulations, Master-Adept Cartwright, as well as our personal thanks and best and warmest regards,**

**Gustavus Richards: I.M. Warding (Spell Cast)**

**Head of the International Masteries Board**

**On Behalf Of, etc.**

 

Ren traced the seal lightly with his fingers. As if on cue, the water turned off abruptly, and the pipes silenced.

"Hey," Bill greeted him as he emerged from the kitchen, rather red-eyed and bleary looking and carrying a tray. On it were three glasses of orange juice, three mugs, a pot of freshly brewed coffee, a small pitcher of cream, and a bowl filled with lumps of sugar. "Breakfast'll be ready in a few. You okay in there, Charles?" he called.

"Yeah," Charlie's voice said, muffled, from the loo. "Hang on, hang..." The door opened and he emerged, rather damp yet in a pair of sweatpants and a Cardiff Turtledragons t-shirt. His sodden ginger and gold hair stuck up everywhere as he toweled it dry. "All yours, mate.”

Ren just smiled and lifted his face for the other man's brief, chaste kiss as Bill set the tray on the coffee table.

"Thanks," he said to Bill, and to Charlie  - "In a bit. Can I fix you a cuppa?"

"Yeah, please." Charlie tossed the towel aside and seated himself in the chair opposite, slumping down. Bill watched as Ren proceeded, without another word and as if he'd done it a thousand times before, to fix a mug in the precise way that Charles had always, since he was old enough to start drinking the stuff, preferred it - three lumps of sugar first, then half a cup and a hefty double shot  of cream over top, unstirred so that the sugar dissolved gradually, the sweetness of the drink increasing with each sip till all that was left in the bottom was a caffeinated sludge that he'd scoop and slurp with the offered spoon. Charlie accepted both, setting the spoon aside and sipped gingerly. Ren eyed his pale, drawn face as he poured his own cup, settling back cross-legged in the borrowed black sweatpants he'd slept in.

"Will you hit me if I ask how you're feeling?" he asked the patient.

"Okay. Tired, though. Really tired.”

“Pain?'

"No."

"Mm. Well, I have a few errands to run, but you two just lounge about and take it easy today. I’ll bring groceries and take-away home tonight." Ren sipped gingerly. "S'good. Thanks, Billy." Bill just grunted.

"You're letting him call you Billy now?" Charlie raised an amused eyebrow at his brother. "I thought only I was allowed to call you that."

"F'it makes it easier for him to differentiate from the people you both knew, why not?" It wasn't really a shrug, or a question, and  the exquisitely neutral expression was back, if not quite hardened... Before either man could reply, he disappeared back into the kitchen. Charlie grimaced.

"Bit moodier than he was back home," he said in an undertone "Well, a lot. He’s happy for you, really, and will be for us too, once he gets used to the idea. He just needs a few days to process now that everything’s over.”

"I get that." Ren adjusted his blankets. "And it's been a rough week all around besides. Really rough. Brazil... It's going to hit him hard once he starts processing the implications of what we saw there. 'Prentice?" he raised his voice. Charlie’s eyebrow quirked at him again. There was a pause, then...

"What," Bill's voice said from the kitchen.

"You got any objections to the idea of seeing a Mind Healer?"

" _What_?"

Charlie lowered his coffee and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose.

"You always did have that habit of stepping in it straight up, didn’t you," he mumbled. Bill appeared again, bearing two loaded plates.

"Hold up," he said, and disappeared, returning shortly with his own plate and settling in the battered rocking chair. "Okay, what?"

"You just bore personal witness to an event that no one besides me in the history of the world has, or will ever be able to relate to," Ren said gently. "The effective memorial service of twenty five _million_ lost and murdered people, Bill. Quite possibly two or three times that. Those leths... Some were probably older than my Horntails. Leths can die, you see, but it only happens in accidents. From the sheer numbers there, I wouldn't say that there have been that many of those going around these parts, historically speaking."

Bill said nothing.

"Billy," Charlie said tentatively. "I think..."

"Can we not talk about it? I don't want to talk about it." Bill stuffed a rasher in his face and chewed savagely.

“You're going to have to," his new employer said bluntly. "Either to a Mind Healer, or to me. Not in front of Charlie, if you don't want to, but ... From my point of view, living the life I've lived... Going through the things that I have, seeing all the things that I've seen... Leaving you alone with it, to try and process it all on your own, would be just as immoral as leaving that bio-rune series on your back the way it was and waiting for you, and the multiverse along with you, to blow."

Bill just hacked off, and stuffed in, another mouthful of pancake.

"I'm not going to make it conditional to your contract, Bill, but I'm not going to let it go either.”

"What are you going to do with them all," Bill said abruptly.

"What, the leths? Burn them. There are several volcanoes I know of that would do the job nicely. They're dead now; whatever magical protection their active biology offered them is gone."

"So you're not going to sell them?"

"What? _What_? “ Ren actually reared back against the back of the sofa, his expression  genuinely horrified and aghast. “No! For God's sake, Bill, _no_! They're _coffins:_ flat, folded _coffins,_ and we're going to bury them decently, as decent men do! Or cremate them, as the case may be. It may take a few return trips and police-boxfuls to do the final job, but it'll get done.  And no, it is _not_ something that I plan to ask you to help me with.”

Bill set his plate aside and pressed his hands to his eyes.

"Can’t  we just burn the swamps themselves?" he asked, muffled. Recovered from his horror, Ren sighed.

"No, honey. Not for awhile yet. The compulsion... And it is a compulsion... That draws whatever was born there back to the source... We have to keep the grounds up and the fence active so that whatever comes back is destroyed as well."

"They won't figure it out and stay away? The lethifolds, I mean?"

"No. They have cunning, but not a lot of intelligence, and as I said, the compulsion to return to their source. I'm fairly sure;  we were all fairly sure back in my world that there's some kind of negative magical node under the swamps that produces and powers them. Those things... They're Dark. Not just naturally unpleasant, but genuinely, genuinely _Dark."_

" _What?_ But you said that that the site was safe for the goblins to build on!"

"They never planned to build there in the first place. We both know that. And do you really think, even  if they had planned to, that they'd go near the place after what we told them? Showed them? Whether the site's viable or not, do you _really_ think that they'd build a bloody _bank_ under a site that twenty five million witches and wizards paid for with their lives? That's not just stupid, it'd be a glove to the face to humanity, never mind that it's going to get out pretty damned fast that the Supreme Mugwump has my proof, whether or not I choose to press charges there, that they tried to assassinate me there. I just said that to remind them of how stupid it would be to push the point. How stupid it would be of _anybody_ to push the point, especially after I stood against a hundred twenty trained duelists for thirty nine minutes and twelve bloody seconds without employing a single attack or taking down even one. Never mind that they didn't actually beat me. They only knocked me down when I stopped moving of my own volition and provided them with a standing target."

Charlie shook his head at that.

 'What do you think would've happened if you'd been allowed to attack?" he asked.

Ren shrugged. "So," he said to neither brother in particular. "How do you think your family will take the news of the wedding? Since we only met a week ago and all?"

"You and I only met a week ago," Bill said dryly. "And Ronnie, at least– and the rest of the boys too, from the looks on their faces - were already picking out our bloody china patterns. I don't think they'll really care which brother you're shagging on the wedding night as long as they get to claim you as theirs after the fact."

"That's the truth,” Charlie agreed.  “Mind you, they're not alone. Right up there with every other witch and wizard on the planet now, I'd say. Really, you're doing global society a favour by taking yourself off the market this soon."

"Do you want a wedding?" Ren asked him directly. "As opposed to an elopement? Never mind your mum, the prospect might just make my mum's brain explode. And that being said... Do we have to get married in the next two days, or would the engagement announcement be enough? You're not exactly in the peak of health right now, and even a couple of weeks and the rune sequences I'll ink on you would make a huge difference."

"I dunno." Charlie poked at his own food. "An elopement might be better. Never mind the fuss and bother, I'm not exactly thrilled with her right now. Mum, I mean. The thought of providing her with an opportunity to get her happy on...”  He gestured with his fork, then stabbed with it, most expressively. “On the timing of the marriage... A lot of that depends on the Malfoys. We really need to get them in on the full picture before Wednesday, at least."

"We can do that. Though I really don't get the rush.  Why the driving imperative there? I mean, if you and I’ve just met in the eyes of the world, he and I _really_ just met, and we have to start planning children together now?'

Charlie and Bill exchanged glances.

"It's not just about the children," Charlie said. "It's about the alliance that'll come out of it. You don't... It’s not going to be long at all before everyone knows that Voldemort’s on his way back, and the impact that  Longbottom, Black and Malfoy - the three richest families in Great Britain now - would have on our society if they were officially allied against him...  Not simply through a legal contract, but through Solace... Then there’s the matter of just what might happen if they aren't. Allied, that is. Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy are both the last Heirs of their lines, mate, and Sirius' blood Heir right now is Draco again. Okay, there's little Harry, but... " He rubbed his cheek. "Augusta was telling the truth about the line ups for the Malfoys again. Embarrassment doesn't even come into it in their case, and Narcissa’s almost thirty eight now besides.  They _need_ more children, not just to ensure the Malfoy line, but again, to ensure the Black line - especially since there's a really good possibility that Sirius, after all the physical damage done to him in Azkaban, won't be able have kids of his own at all. If this isn’t done... Now... Draco  will be Voldemort’s first casualty, guaranteed, followed by Sirius and the Malfoys themselves, and you’ll be next, because you’re the only one who knows where Harry and Neville are supposed to be. They could come out, sure, but Augusta’s supposed to be with them, so she won’t let them, not till they’re grown, and who knows what damage might be done in the intervening years?   But with the three big houses allied, again through Solace, all of their subsidiaries will be allied with them through something a lot stronger and more stable than mere political or legal convenience, because Solace is _permanent_. Never mind that Malfoy has officially declared himself, by doing this, as a deserter from Riddle’s forces. Rumour has it that he was Voldemort’s key strategist through the entire war, _the_ strategist, and if that’s true... Without him... And more to the point with him working _against_ him... His Darkness is guaranteed, guaranteed, to be wetting his wankery pants. Oh,” he added. “And don’t think for one moment that your being an American, and the Headmaster of Hogwarts being an American, _and_  a Longbottom, hasn’t played, and won’t play into this scenario. The U.S. sat out the last war, but with you in there, and now South America  and Central America too, because of their gratitude to you over the lethifolds... No one _, no one_ is going to be able to sit back and say it’s a purely British problem.”

Ren digested that.

"What about Tonks?” he asked. “Where does she come into it? Or does she?”

"That'll come up in negotiations again," Charlie said. "But right now... If this comes through... The general expectation there, and yes, Tonks would be fully, fully aware - is that once things are settled between us and the Malfoys, Remus will approach her to mother his child. She's Sirius' first cousin, yeah; okay, cousin once removed, but still his closest - and only - single female relative. Her having a child with Remus - it's as good as him and Sirius having one together, really. Their child would become blood Heir to Black, and Draco and whatever siblings you produce for him through Malfoy would be Malfoys and Longbottoms. And little Harry does come into the picture too, because he's the sole Heir to the Potters, right? They, the Potters, don't have a whole lot of influence right now, but that influence is just on hiatus, really. Fleamont  would probably have been Minister of Magic instead of Fudge right now if he'd lived, and now, with the cure for lycanthropy to his credit, people are remembering that. When it comes down to it, even though little Harry could make the claim on the Black Heir as Sirius’ eldest, and might even win against the blood Blacks... He's going to have more than enough power in his own right coming in as an adult.”

Ren glanced at Bill. Bill said nothing, though he nodded.

"And now there's you," Charlie continued. "Three International Masteries in Voldemort’s bloody reversed specialties: a Grandmastery in Warding, and another  in Dueling practically in the bag,  the two most powerful wands in the world, as far as anyone goes, never mind your avenging of twenty five million witches and wizards against a millennia-old, deathless enemy - and people will be processing all that very, very soon if they haven't started already... Whether you intended it or not, you're more influential and purely politically powerful right now and already than you ever were as Harry Potter. Wherever You-Know-Who is right now... I can guarantee you, _guarantee_ you, that he's seriously considering whether life as a permanent disembodied spirit would really be that bad after all."

"And all I have to do to seal the deal is bugger Lucius Malfoy?”

"Pretty much. Though from what Bill tells me, it's a price that he, at least, is more than willing to pay."

"Are you?" his mate asked bluntly. Charlie shrugged.

“He's a good guy.  Or at least not a bad one.  I mean, no one’s ever confirmed anything for sure, right, but after everything was all over, the room for doubt on which side he was working all along was, and _is_ there. You don't have to take my word for it, ask the Horntails what they think of him."

Ren rubbed his face.

"I don't know, Charlie," he said. "I love _you_. And I've never been with anybody but Gin."

Bill, silent through the explanations till now, lifted a shoulder at that. "Equal footing there, at least. He's never been with anybody but Niss, as far as anyone knows anyway,” he said. “His arse is more'n likely as virgin as yours. "

"Charming, Weasley. Doesn't it bother you?" Ren addressed Charlie again. "Cultural differentials aside, I'm your mate!"

Charlie sat back and examined him.

"Ren," he said at last. "If it were me... If it were down to me... And I asked you that question, under these circumstances that I just described to you... What would you say?"

"I'd say hell _yes_ , it would bother me! It might not erase the fact that it needs to be done, but I'd at least admit that it _bothered_ me!"

"There's a huge difference," his dragon wrangler said rather deliberately. "On all parts... Between your buggering his arse, and him buggering yours. _That_ much, I assure you, is not, and never will be, on the table, and believe you me, I intend to make that very, _very_ clear at any and every point in the negotiations. I may be a wrangler, not an actual dragon, but the territorial instincts are rather contagious there. I'm fairly sure Narcissa feels the same way." He sipped his coffee again. "When it comes right down to it, she and I will be working out that part of the agreement, not the two of you."

"Are you going to give him permission to enjoy it at least?" Bill smirked at him around his own mug. 

"Kind of a prerequisite for kids, yeah? On his part anyway. Niss might very well inform her loving husband that he's to reserve all enjoyment for her, in that hour afterwards."

"Should I take this as an indication that you plan to be the big scary one in our relationship?" Ren asked politely.

"Not necessarily, no. I do intend to be the big scary one though, if he were ever begin to delude himself that any agreement between the four of us would constitute an invitation to a personal romantic relationship with you.”

That last was rather cool, and rather harder than Ren had anticipated... Hard enough to actually disconcert him a little.  Bill, too, seemed a bit put off, and he eyed his brother peculiarly.

"What?" Charlie asked, catching the look.

"I dunno," he said. "You just... That really didn't sound like you. At all."

“What does that mean?”

“It just... Didn’t. You’ve always been so laid back and relaxed about these things. I never thought you cared about  politics, much less paid attention. Never mind that you’re suddenly bent? When did that happen? I thought we knew everything about each other, everything there _is_ to know about each other, and now...”

His voice rose, agitated with each word till he cut himself off.

“And what?” Charlie said quietly.

"He said you’re still my brother, that you’ve always been, but brother or no... Now it’s like you're not even the same _man_!"

Silence fell. Charlie set his coffee aside as the young man opposite struggled, in his red-eyed, pale fatigue, not to cry. For the first time, the first time, and now that he wasn’t distracted by the last week’s happenings, Ren truly processed just how ill Bill Weasley really looked – not just emotionally, but physically, now that the masking spells were all and truly gone, and the initial rebound-and-enhancement  effects of the removed Notice-Me-Not faded... His new apprentice’s shining hair was dull and lank and he didn’t just look overly slim or lean; he looked emaciated – thinner even,  proportionately, and just as, if not more fragile, than Charlie himself.

 _Bugger. Buggerbuggerbugger_ bugger _. I have to find out what painkillers the goblins had him on. The kind of potions it must have taken for him to control the kind of pain he was in, since he was a kid, even... This isn’t just stress,_ or _Brazil. I didn’t even think... Four days in, the shit’s finally cleared his system. He’s in bloody_ withdrawal.

"Yes and no," Charlie said at last. "Though.. Can I ask you a question, Billy?"

What." Bill wiped his nose on his sleeve. He looked, Ren thought, as young as Ron.

"Can you really say that _you're_ the same man that you were four days ago?'

Bill just buried his face in his hands again. Charlie pushed himself up and came to hunker beside him, rubbing his knee.

"I want you to do something for me," he said.

"What."

"Cast your Patronus."

_"What?"_

"Before you went to Brazil, you cast it twice. It was a panther. Did you manage to cast it while you were there?"

"No. I was too busy sicking up and crying."

"Defining events redefine a person, Billy. You spent your life seeing through another man's eyes. And Ren closed that door before you left... So when you two went... You had only your own left to look through. To see through. And the first thing you saw was... That. _That_? Christ, Billy, that's got to have changed you more than the Room did Ren, on every level there is!"

"I’ll do it later. Somewhere else. I can't cast it here; not in front of you."

"You can't hurt me. Not with that. And if you could, or rather it could... It'd be worth it.” His voice softened. “You're so beautiful, Billy. You’ve always been so beautiful, though nobody’s ever been allowed to see it, any more than you were allowed to see it yourself.  Nothing, I know, can change that much. Show  us, show _yourself_ what they've done to you. Who you are now. Whatever it is... I’ll love you for it just the same as I’ve always loved you, of all the brothers and sisters I’ve ever had, on any world... The most and the best. That, at least, I swear, no matter how either of us has changed... Will never, _never_ change.”

Bill just pressed his hands to his eyes. He didn't get up, didn't go to fetch his wand.

" _Expecto patronum_ ," he whispered. A great white light emanated all around him, stretching and filling the room. Ren and Charlie looked at each other. Charlie reached out and touched his brother's cheek.

"Look," he said. "Look at yourself, Billy. Look." His voice was thick with tears and awe.

Bill lowered his hands, and opened his eyes. Before him, wings stretched wide, was a fully formed, pitch black phoenix.

"It's black," he said, bewildered. "How can it be black? Patronuses are silver. Always."

"It's mourning," Ren said quietly. "I destroyed the leths, yes, but you were their victims' witness. In a very, very real way, you officiated at their funerals. _Twenty five million_ funerals, Bill. Maybe even, as I said, two or three times that. Acknowledging their deaths... Acknowledging them... And as you _were_ acknowledging _their_ deaths in the given moment, not those of the lethifolds...  It changed you. Killed something in you. Your essence, your soul, though... It survived, reborn from the Horntails' fire into something completely new. Something incredibly beautiful and powerful, yes, but yet and absolutely defined - as will you be, Billy, all of your life now, for better or worse -  by your grief and sorrow at what you witnessed."

Bill didn’t look so much impressed or enthralled as bemused. "Have you ever seen anything like it before?" he asked.

"No," Ren said. "But nobody ever's seen what you did. Even in my world... There were fifty of us there, yeah, but we were all too busy powering the spells through the fence to focus on processing or acknowledging what was really happening below. We grieved for the victims after, yes; there was a world-wide memorial service - but even so... There were only seven thousand or so of them, not half a million or more. We caught them at the height off their off season, you see?  And now... No one who sees your Patronus will ever be able to forget what you saw. Those twenty five million people, lost, stolen and forgotten... You've created something absolutely unique, never seen before, a memorial for them. You've created something absolutely unique of yourself. You're their memorial. As for the shape itself... It's not so surprising, really, is it?"

"I don't see it."

"We arrived at a time of _birth_. The birth of abominations, but still birth, and we dealt them death, and when you acknowledged their victims' deaths, the victims themselves... In a very real way, you brought them back to life again. And you were reborn from it too, weren't you?  As long as you're living, Bill Weasley, as long as you're living - and probably ever after, from the After, because a phoenix never truly dies - those twenty five million people, maybe twice that, maybe three times... will live on too. Live on – and be remembered.”

The black phoenix faded slowly. The silver mist disappeared. Bill buried his face in his arms again.

"I want to be able to do what you did," he said, muffled. "To be able to stop it - anything _like_ it - not just fix it, but stop it from ever happening again."

"Mm. You're going to have to learn to ride a broomstick then," Ren said. "Properly. A Warder's most important tool is his broomstick."

"Of course it is," Bill lifted his head, face wet, and sat up properly, reaching first for the box of tissues, and then for his pancakes again. "Broomsticks, protection... They go together like crumpets and butter." He stuffed in a huge mouthful as Charlie and Ren laughed riotously. "Did I hurt you with it?" he asked his brother when he’d swallowed. "I mean, you don't feel like you're going to sick up or anything?"

"Nah," Charlie said. "Patronuses and Peruvian Viperteeth - Vipertooths? - don't mix. Pretty sure that that was one bit of incoming, at least, that got properly bounced." He returned to the sofa and his own breakfast. "Mm. Yum. Don't tell Mum I said so, but you make the best pancakes _ever_."

"Why wouldn't I tell her? I'd enjoy telling her!"

"Ah." He paused. "Sorry. Right. I wasn't talking about our Mum. I was talking about my Mum."

"Was she a bint too?"

"On occasion. She made up for a lot of it though, when she directed it all at Bellatrix Lestrange during the final battle against Voldemort and smeared her all over the wall of the Great Hall."

Bill, fork raised to stuff in another wad of pancake, paused and lowered it.

"Seriously?" he said blankly. "Seriously? Mum’s counterpart  took out _Bellatrix Lestrange_?"

"Yup." Charlie forked up blueberries. "Everybody remembers the moment when Nev gave Voldy the finger and Ren here bounced  his final AK back at him, but let me tell you, nobody's ever, ever argued that that one's _the_ solid third Moment-to-Remember of the whole war. She got her own special edition Chocolate Frog card for it and everything: Molly Prewett Weasley: She-Who-Shall-Ever-Be-Remembered-As-The-One-Who-Nailed-The-Bitch."

" _Damn._ ”  Bill sat back enviously. "Your mum is _way_ cooler than _our_ mum."

"Oh, I dunno," Ren said. "The inadvisable specifics aside, and not that I'm defending her or anything, but your Mum was willing to rip a hole in the fabric of time and space and to risk the entire multiverse to save her child's life. And before you say that you paid the price of it, and at the risk at sounding objective... That bit really, _really_ wasn't supposed to happen."

"She's a bit of a bint in her own right too, you know? I don't just resent her for that."

"I do know," Ren agreed. "I can honestly, honestly say that I do know. My own mum died to save my life, but let me tell you, now that I've met her in person? I'm pretty sure that even with a completely normal childhood and adolescence, she and I would have killed each other by the time I came of age."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. I told you about my relationship with my youngest, yeah? Think Harry and Al: the prequel. I know I'm supposed to love her, and she's got any number of lovely qualities, I'm sure, but... She's just so... Nrgh." The brand-new Master Warder-Adept stabbed his own pancakes. " _Pushy_. She actually thinks she knows me, everything _about_ me, just by virtue of the fact that she popped me and died for me.  And passive-aggressive? Honestly, just because you died a martyr doesn't mean you have to act one when you come back, you know? I'm beginning to understand why her Patronus is a doe. Those sad, dewy eyed wistful looks over breakfast, lunch and dinner _define_ doe-eyes, and we all know exactly how I feel about being emotionally manipulated. I swear to God, it almost makes me miss Aunt Petunia's frying pan. At least she was straightforward about it; I never had to wonder what she was up to there.”

"Never mind that she's shagging Snape," Charlie agreed, reaching for his orange juice. "That's gotta get your squick off right there."

Ren shuddered convulsively and expressively. Bill snorted with laughter.

"Every kid in the universe - every universe - walks in on his parents at least once in their lives," he said. "Your time _is_ coming there, I promise."

"Aaaaand I've suddenly lost my appetite." Charlie dropped his fork on his plate with a clatter. "Thank you, William. Thank you ever so much. I've spent six years successfully blocking that one, and now that it's back, I can't even Obliviate myself, can I?"

"Severus Snape is not my father," Ren said firmly. "He's not even my stepfather. So they're not my parents, they're just my mum and her boyfriend. Also? I vote we make a pact right here, right now, the three of us. My mum and your mum? They will never, never, _never_ be allowed to meet. From the sounds of it, they'd get along just brilliantly, and that cannot, and will not, lead anywhere good."

"Ship's sailed, mate, now that we're getting married. As the mothers of the grooms, we're sunk."

"Bugger." Ren slumped. "Are you sure we can't just shack up?"

"Nope. Never mind the Malfoys, and never mind what I just said about eloping, I am at heart a traditional boy, Cartwright, and I want it all. Big splashy wedding, flowers, candles, music, cute little cottage with a white picket fence right on the edge of the Reserves..."

"Aren't you a proper princess. Hundred years’ sleep and all. Will there be snogging, at least, Beauty?"

"Uh?"

"Back at the hospital, remember? The first day I came in, when you were diagnosed. When you told me that your nickname was Beauty, because of all your freckles, and the blokes there called them beauty marks?"

"Yeah, yeah." Charlie rolled his eyes. "The joke never got old, at least for everyone but me, in either world." He caught Ren’s sudden frown at that. "What? What did I say?"

"I don't..." The former Head Auror frowned even more deeply. "Something important, something... Charlie," he said. "The Horntails. You said they owed you a favour. From the Tri-Wizard tourney.  Gin said that too, now that I remember... Well, never mind now. What was it? The favour, I mean, now that we’re alone and you can tell me? What did you do for them?"

"Uh? Oh. Oh. right. I saved their eggs."

"Huh?"

"Was right before the Tri-Wizard tourney, like you said. The Ministry'd just sent the word that they wanted the Horntail specially. Roddie, he was the head wrangler, pegged their reason right away; she was black and spiky like your hair, and with the red of the Gryffindor uniform and the crimson fire, never mind that expectant mothers there are like the female equivalent of You-Know-Who, some tosser realized you'd match. You were bloody fourteen, and Ron's best friend, and you'd got us the female Ridgeback besides, right, from Hagrid? So the wranglers were all really upset on your personal behalf, never mind that actually trying to move a nesting Horntail much less touch her eggs would have been suicide all around, never mind murder, because the eggs are so fragile at certain points and we were at one of those points when the Ministry contacted us. But we had no choice but to try, because you were involved, and the Ministry was threatening to use its influence with the Romanians to cut funding if we didn't pony up. So we were all trying to figure out a way around it, and I was the one who did."

"Um. What?"

"Horntail eggs look like giant rocks," Charlie explained. "We transfigured a whole heap, right, to look like the eggs themselves. Then we put them in the field right next to the mother's, and I went out and had a little talk with her. Horntails are as smart as people, you just don't use words, right? You have to project images and emotions at them. They have like, this mental thing, like draconic legilimency and I was always really good at it. The other wranglers said I was kind of creepy with it, really, specially with the big scary ones. So I went to talk to her, the female Horntail, that is, and tried to explain what was going to happen, and what she had to do, and what would happen if she didn't. And she went a little barmy at first, yeah, but eventually she settled down, and when the day came, she moved over to the transfigured eggs and made like they were hers while we Notice-Me-Notted the real ones. Big ham, she really got into it too. Put on a great show. Anyway, we took her to Scotland along with the fake eggs, and her mate came in from the mountains to watch the nest while she was off. And she played it up perfectly, the big drama queen; no one even guessed what she was doing or that the eggs were fake, and when we brought her back she went straight to her nest again. Three months later, they shelled, and two survived, out of the twenty seven. The first two hatchlings that had survived in all of their lives together, and they were both so old, we knew it would be their last clutch. After that... They weren't big and scary at all, at least around me. Made it pretty clear that they considered me family, because I'd warned them, and saved their children and future."

He sipped his juice. Ren and Bill just gawked at him, mouths ajar.

"Anyway," Charlie continued. "After I got sick... Bill... Not you, Billy, but Bill... Took me back one last time to the Reserves, a few months before the end, to say goodbye to all of them, but to the Horntails especially. And they just... They absolutely freaking went _insane_. They could tell, see? They could smell the Vipertooth from my wand inside me, killing me, and I was their kid. And there was nothing they could do. Nothing, and it just... Christ. You don't ever want to see grown Horntails cry. You just... don’t. And Bill took me home, but before I finally passed we went back one more time, because during those last few months after we returned, we had a visitor. Hermione, from the future, with that time turner, the fancier version of the one Al and Scorpius nicked, that she'd nicked herself when she retired, and set aside for a rainy day. Anyway. She told us, Bill and me, what had happened, what we - he - had accomplished with the girls from the Hen's Club; she could tell him because he was part of it, right, and it had already been done from her perspective, so she was just closing the loop. And she said that we all had to go back and talk to the Horntails. To tell them I was passing soon, and maybe a little of what she’d told us of what the future held, and that my mate at least – the man that I loved; the one that they’d met so many years ago, who’d been only a baby caught up in the same mess that they, and their babies had been – would get a second chance, with another version of me. She told us that we weren’t to say anything else, because it was part of the magics involved in the rituals that would follow that they’d have to offer."

"Offer," Ren repeated.

"They were old," Charlie explained. "Dying themselves. They had their kids, and they were doing well, but ... They knew the Vipertooth was in my wand. They hadn't been able to get it across to me at first, but they managed it then. And they said that they wanted to donate their live heartstrings to make a stronger pair of wands. A pair that together that would be stronger than anything, strong enough to cure me, or if that couldn’t be done, to power my own little interdimensional ride, see, to get me here. My soul, to where my mate's soul was, so we could be together. Not in the world  that our world’s team had  originally chosen, but if they could manage it, another... One almost the same, or same in the important ways, but a few dimensional doors over: one where my counterpart would have died before he was born, so they could slot me in. That’s why everything is different here, see, on the finer details? The girls didn’t just hijack the ritual, they pushed everything – all of it – sideways, so that Neville wouldn’t be the only one to get his happy ending. They wanted us to have ours too, and the Horntails facilitated... Everything."

Ren's jaw hit the floor.

"It was all kind of abstract," Charlie said. "I wasn't... I didn't get all of it. I wasn't thinking very clearly. But Bill did. And Hermione did, because it had already been done, and she knew that her younger self- _would_ figure it out because her older self, the one who came back to me and Bill, already had. All sorts of ends closed, no dangling temporal ends, and it was all so _weird,_ but in the end, they just told me not to worry about it, and what I had to do, and what would happen. Mostly, though, it all came down to you, even once everything was in place. You had to be the one to help me pass, because of everyone, _everyone,_ we knew that you, of all people, wouldn't be able to mean it, and that the words would bring me to the place where I could make the choice. And once I'd made the choice, the second half of the magics, the power of the Horntails, plus whatever Susie Bones rigged in the Department of Mysteries: Hermione told us that she ended up as Head Unspeakable, working in the secret room, right: the one involving all the research on love? Nobody knew what was in there but her. She never told anybody. Just said it could be done. And when everything that needed to be done... _Was_ done, with the help of their time turner again.. I asked you to help me." He looked down at his thin hands. "I didn't... I almost couldn't do it. To leave you with that... To ask that of you...  Bill had been going to, originally. And I asked him again. But he said he wouldn't do it. Because it had to be you. And you did it, and it worked."

Ren sat back and stared at him.

"Mola," he said at last. "Mola is the Horntail from the Tri-Wizard tourney?"

"Yeah. And Karrash was - is - her mate."

Ren ran his hand through his light brown hair.

"I don't know the finer details," Charlie said again. "I know you have a lot more questions; I do too, but that’s all I know. Maybe we’ll never know the answers, I don’t know.  I can only guess... I'm pretty sure... From what I remember, that it all had to do with the Room of Requirement, at Hogwarts. The one that can make anything possible, and can create doors to anywhere, and I think, again maybe, though Hermione said that Susie never went into details... I think that room at the Department of Mysteries must be related to it somehow. Because it's about love, and the saying, you know, that love makes all things possible- all things new again. I don't think there... That it's really a metaphor. It can't be, because if the dragons were involved, there... They don't do metaphors. Drama, but not metaphors."

“How did the wands _get_ here, though? How did they become wands? Amber isn’t ever a substance used for wands in our world. It can’t be; it’s one of the major elements in the brands of runic ink, there at least, that keeps magic out of an area rather than containing it! The molecular composition there rejects magic entirely, and I had to revamp half my recipes from scratch once I arrived to accommodate for the fact that here, it does the exact opposite!”

"I'm _sorry_ ," Charlie said in frustration. "I can't _tell_ you anymore. Not won’t, but can’t. All I remember is that they said I had everything I needed, and that you would be able to put the final pieces together, from the middle of things. Because that's how you always _did_ do things, as an Auror. How you do do them. They said all I had to do was... “ He made a small, vague gesture. “Be who I was, and that you would be who _you_ were, and everything would be alright. And that as the Horntails had started everything, they would be the ones to finish it. Whatever 'it' is. And I know that there's more, I do, mate... But I don't know what!"

In the back of Ren’s mind, the Horntails hummed quietly.

"It's got to all fit together," he said to himself. "They left hints. The wands, the fact that you were Briar..."

He cut himself off, dead.

"What? What?"

"Fucking Gin," he said, overwhelmed.  "Bloody brilliant, amazing _amazing_ fucking _beautiful_ Gin. She gave Lily the book. _Our_ book. When she was six. I read it to her, every night before I left for work, for a whole fucking _year_. The legend of fucking Sleeping Beauty, Charlie. Only in the book, it was the original story. The one where she was called Briar Rose."

"I don't..." He looked bewildered.

"The  girls sent Hermione back _twice_ ," Ren said. "Once to talk to you, and once to talk to Gin herself. When Lily was small. To tell her to get me and Lily the book, because it already had been done. And it held the final clue."

"I'm missing something here, mate," Charlie said bluntly. "I'm sorry. I'm a dragon wrangler, and okay, maybe a little bit of a closet poet, but you're the Auror, not..."

"Yes," Ren said. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, buggery bloody bollocking _balls_ , yes, you are. You're a fucking dragon wrangler, and a princess, and a _poet,_ and bloody J. Alfred has had his bloody day."

"Uh?”

"The book." He scrambled for his backpack, wedged between the wall and the end of the sofa. "It's here. The book you sent me. Yesterday.  It's here, it's all right _here_. T.S. Bloody Eliot, no more Prufrock, it's the end of the poem. It's the end of the poem. "Till human voices wake us. Till human voices wake us. That's it. The voices in the wand, they're human voices, there to fucking _wake_ us, to wake me, and you, so we can finish the poem and turn the bloody _page_. To page 141."

"Is he always like this?" Bill asked Charlie, bemused.

"Pretty much. Though it seems to have gotten worse with age."

"Shut up. Shut up, shut _up_." Ren fumbled for his biros, and with a quick wave, shoved all the furniture against the wall, dropping to his knees and inscribing runes and sigils as he turned and turned until he was inside a circle, the book still in his hand. When he was finished, he stood.

"Get in here," he ordered Charlie. "Step over."

"Ren..."

'Do you trust me?"

Charlie just rolled his eyes. Ren shoved the book at him.

"Read it," he ordered. "The parts in the bracket. That you bracketed."

“What, _now_?”

“Yes. _Yes_!”

"Plonker. You're crazy, you know that?" The look was soft though, and even a little indulgent. "I was going to save it for our wedding.”

"If you read it," Ren Cartwright said. "We'll get more than a wedding, Beauty. We'll get our fucking happy-ever-after."

"Uh?"

"Horntails," the Warder said clearly. Precisely. "Are _territorial_. They don't _like_ other dragons in their territory unless they're useful to them. A dragon who was trying to kill their kid wouldn't be useful, Charlie. They'd want it dead. And there would be absolutely no bloody buggering bollocking _point_ in sending you here to me, would there, if I arrived _after_ the Vipertooth had got to you, and if all we were going to get to do was say fucking _goodbye_ again! That means they found an answer. A way out. A cure. And they left it with you, because you're _you_. Gin gave me the book on Sleeping Beauty, but it all had to balance, so they gave you a book too. A book that they knew you’d find again no matter where you were, because Eliot was always, _always_ your favorite, and everybody else called you Beauty, but you always identified, all your life, insofar as I’m concerned, with bloody J. Alfred _Prufrock._ It all fits _together!”_

Charlie looked down at the page.

"Wait," Ren said suddenly. "Wait." He held up the Horntails, one in each hand. "Am I right? And if I am... Are you _sure_? Are you both really, really, _really_ sure?"

A vibrant emphatic purr, not a laugh, but of  mutual absolute conviction rose, filling not just his mind, but the room itself. Both Bill and Charlie jumped, astonished at the sound.

"Thank you," Ren said to them.  "Thank you. Thank you. Both of you. And Gin... If you're listening, wherever you are... You are, and will always be, the best fucking wife ever. In any universe.  Read it, Charlie."

And  Charlie bent his head and began to read, not from Prufrock, but from the bracketed section of the poem on the turned page.

**_With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling_ **

_**We shall not cease from exploration** _  
_**And the end of all our exploring** _  
_**Will be to arrive where we started** _  
_**And know the place for the first time.** _

Bill's hands came up to cover his eyes.

 ** _Through the unknown, unremembered gate,_** Charlie continued steadily.  
_**When the last of earth left to discover**_  
_**Is that which was the beginning;**_  
_**At the source of the longest river**_  
_**The voice of the hidden waterfall**_  
_**And the children in the apple-tree**_

 _**Not known, because not looked for** _  
_**But heard, half-heard, in the stillness** _  
_**Between two waves of the sea.** _  
_**Quick now, here, now, always--** _

His voice cracked. Bill's thin shoulders shook as he wept behind his hands.

“Always," Ren’s voice cracked too. "Buggering bloody bollocking fucking _always_."

"Yeah," Charlie said, and wiped his own eyes with a thin fist. "Always."

**_A condition of complete simplicity_ **

"So simple. So _simple._ I've been so stupid, I'm so, so so sorry..."

"Shut up, mate. I'm saying my wedding vows here."

**_(Costing not less than everything)_ **

_**And all shall be well and** _  
_**All manner of thing shall be well** _  
_**When the tongues of flames are in-folded** _  
_**Into the crowned knot of fire** _  
_**And the fire and the rose are one.** _

His voice slowed, than stopped.

"The fire and the rose," Ren repeated.

 "I still don't understand,” Charlie said to him bluntly.

"You're the _rose_ , Beauty. Briar Rose. And the Horntails will provide the fire. Two live, mated heartstrings' worth of fire. All the power in the world. Enough to power a cross-dimensional gate, to fluff-and-fold half a bloody million deathless abominations, and  with enough left yet to kill a Vipertooth and a Dark Wanker without harming their hosts. Neville said it, back on Tuesday morning, the day before my first exam. I was up in his quarters watching him shave, and we were joking around, and he said this time around it was his turn to kill Voldemort while I took on the snake - the last horcrux - and it should work out just fine because two live heartstrings from a pair of mated dragons had to be at least, if not more effective than a basilisk. The last piece of him, in me - gone, and without him having to AK it out of me either. Except he won't _know_ that, will he? He'll still be holding off on killing me to keep himself safe because he thinks I'm the last horcrux, and the only one who can kill him. So in spite of everything that he thinks he now knows... As long as we keep this between the three of us, without telling anybody else, and I _do_ mean anyone else... We'll have our ace in the hole back again."

“But what about the prophecy?"

"If it exists here at all, it's not the same one. It can't be. Too much has changed. Too much is different."

"And we only have to kill Mola and Karrash to manage everything?"

"They _offered,"_ Ren said firmly. "They're offering. They’re still offering. You heard them just now, when I asked them to confirm, and you told me too yourself, in the letter you sent yesterday. This is what they _want_ , Charlie. It was never me who was their kid, don’t you see? It was you, all along. I'm just the son-in-law."

"But...” He struggled. “They're _people_!"

"It's why they _came._ They were old. They are old. So old. _It's_ old. The wand. Because if they’re soulmates, they’re really just one wand after all, not two. You said it to me yourself the day you passed, when you were talking about me using your wand to help you pass, instead of mine, remember? You – I - thought you were talking about the Vipertooth, but you were just... You were so tired. And more than a little confused.  I think maybe you were talking about the Horntails all along. "It’s old. It’ll never match another. Its time is done when I am,” he recited.  “Use it. Then break it. And the dragons will come and burn us both.” And I said “Are you sure?” And _you_ said, "Yeah. I am. Couple of them owe me a favour.' "

Charlie said nothing. His breathing was harsh and distraught... Ren jittered anxiously. Then...

"Charles," Bill said quietly from his seat on the battered rocking chair. "Let them go."

"Billy..."

"It's what they want," his brother said. It was more than a little remote. 'They'll be at peace, and you'll still be here. To live on, with the love you and Ren have for each other as their memorial. That's what matters to them. All that matters to them. All that _matters_.  Living hearts, living souls... _People..._ They're not  meant to be stowed and frozen for all eternity, little brother. Especially not those of dragons. They bound themselves for you there, for a little while, but when it comes right down to it...  Dragons... Dragons are meant to fly."

" _Bugger_ ," Charlie Weasley said, and still weeping, took the wands and pressed them to his lips. "Big fucking drama queens. I love you both, so, so much." Ren Cartwright reached out and folded his hands - his solid, strong, wide and strong-fingered hands - around the hands of the man he loved.

"It'll be okay," the Warder said to his wrangler. "I _know_. It's all that I know. No, it's everything I know. Who I am. What I am." He actually paused and considered that. "It'd make a great motto for Warders in general, yeah?  'All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.' I could even order up a few t-shirts; what do you think?"

"I think you're a git. A git that talks too much. And it fucking _better_ be okay," Bill said truculently from the rocking chair. "Or Mum'll bloody kill me. Both of our mums."

"I'm sure the girls took it into consideration," Ren reassured him. "They're mums too, after all. Well, not Susie, but she kind of mothered us all. That was always what the knitting was all about, yeah?"

On three," Charlie said, and again to the wands... "Horntails. Such fucking drama queens, every one of you. Shoulda known you'd never be satisfied to go out with anything less than a final bloody blaze of glory. One... Two..."

"Three.” Even as the word left Ren’s lips, he leaned forward and caught Charlie's mouth with his, and their hands tightened together... Tongues of bright flame leached out from below their fingers, rising up and around and surrounding the knot of their entwined hands as the rising peaks of a crown.

There was a sharp double snap...

And the world, as it was contained within the small, shimmering gold dome that rose from inside the runic fence inscribed on the floor of 259 Bolingbroke Court, Flat B, London, was suddenly drowned in dragon fire.


	16. Epilogue

 

**St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries**

**Tuesday, November 25, 1991**

**8.30 P.M.**

The south wing on the fourth floor of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, opposite the Janus Thickey Ward and to the left of the main lifts, was an orderly semi-circle of stern and sterile operating rooms. Never one of the noisier sections of the hospital, it seemed particularly quiet on the given evening, at least to the occupants of the waiting lounge, all sprawled and sitting in near-silence and  in various positions and combinations over the provided sofas and chairs... Every now and again there was the sound of a door opening in the distance, or a murmuring from the admitting desk on the north side.

Down the hall, the chime of the lifts sounded. After a moment, a middle-aged man with fading ginger hair and a soft, weary expression appeared. A tray of tea mugs and another bearing a large pile of assorted snacks and bags of crisps followed him sedately.

"Any word?" he asked.

Percy Weasley shook his head. He sat, huddled beside his mother, a newspaper held loosely in his hands. His robes were prim and neat, but his immaculate hair was disheveled and his eyes, behind his tortoise-shell glasses, were as red as anyone's there. On the sofa opposite Charlie Weasley slouched, George dozing on his right shoulder and Fred lying sprawled on his back, snoring slightly as he lay with his head in his elder brother's lap. Ginny sat at his feet, leaning against his legs as if afraid he would disappear. Curled in an armchair opposite, Ron got up for the hundredth time and went to look hopefully down the hall... Again, he returned, crestfallen.

Percy set the newspaper aside and took the tea his father offered him, nodding. Arthur just smiled at him distractedly as he returned to sit beside his wife. She, like everyone else, turned her wondering eyes as compulsively as everyone else had, every few minutes, to survey their second child.

"Are you sure you're alright here, Charlie?' Arthur asked anxiously. "I know you said you're fine now, but it wouldn't hurt to have a healer check, would it?"

"I'm fine, Dad," his son reassured him. "And I'm scheduled for the full confirming work-up next week, but honestly, do I look sick to you?"

"No," his father admitted, and it was the truth.  The Horntails' final gift had left Ren unchanged (save for the horcrux scar, and they'd solved that easily enough by popping back to the Room of Requirement and having a word on Deceptive Necessity) but Charlie... Charlie's every inch fairly glowed, as if lit from deep within (and not inaccurately) with warm, ruddy fire. His cheeks and freckled complexion were high with healthy colour again, the gold streaks in his hair shimmered like flames in his cheerful riot of curl, and his brown eyes were sharp and sparkling with life and energy...  Too, the fire had actually restored him to optimal weight, and though no taller - at five foot five inches, he yet stood three or four inches shorter than Ren -  his stocky, solid body was now precisely the same weight, to the ounce, as it had been when he'd first come in with Snape from Romania. His wasted chest and shoulders were thick with muscle once more, his arms (he'd kept his scars and burns) and belly hard, ropy and defined, and his legs and hips strong and sturdy... Every single member of his family (even Percy), upon seeing him again after his healing, had promptly burst into tears. The recovered dragon wrangler had reciprocated fully, particularly over the twins... Ren had had to excuse himself hastily to the loo to recover himself when he'd realized that in this... his... Charlie's eyes, the last time he'd seen Fred was at his funeral, and that he'd not lived to see George look truly happy since.

Helping herself to the contents of the holster attached to his boot, Ginny leaned back and examined Charlie's new wand, obtained as his first priority when he'd almost bodily dragged his brother and new mate out to Diagon Alley.

"An obvious and excellent match," Ollivander had observed, as the young dragon wrangler examined it... It was the first and only one he'd shown him. "And the implications bode well on all fronts. Applewood: long life, health and prosperity, tends to bond to the well-loved, charming and gregarious personality, and with those for a knack for communicating with magical beasts...The unicorn hair denotes healing, of course."

"Brilliant." Charlie flicked it at the empty box on the counter. It shot up promptly, with such flair and enthusiasm that it if had had arms and a voice, it would have flung them out and intoned a grand 'TA-DA!'"

"Bit showy, mind you," the wandmaker conceded. "The longer wands always are, and at seventeen and a quarter, it's one of the longest I've made. Couldn't be helped; the unicorn was a stallion in his prime: beautiful mane and tail, almost as long as his horn: head of his herd, and more than a bit whimsical himself. Took- takes - his job seriously, but a bit of a practical joker, if unicorns can ever call themselves that. The core of your first wand - ash and unicorn hair, as I recall - was from one of its offspring."

"The wood in the handle's different from the rest," Ginny observed as she tugged at her brother's arm to examine it. The two men (and Bill) had invited her (ignoring the broad hints of their mother) along on their mission, and for breakfast and owl-shopping afterwards - Phineas, by then, was on his way to Castelobruxo with Marshmallow, not with Neil, but in the recommended care of one of the South American representatives of the ICW headed back that way after the duel. "With shells!"

"It's not different," Ollivander explained to her. "Just from another applewood tree.  An older one. The color matures as the tree ages, and as for the shell, it's not shell at all. It's dragon scale. Decorative, but still. A most auspicious factor again, all things considered."

"S'really pretty. Antipodean Opal-Eye?" Ren asked, leaning in.

"No, but close. Related, anyway. Tasmanian Steel-Hide," Charlie said. "S'got the dark blue overtones, see there? Opal-eyes are more mother-of-pearl-ish."

"Ooh," Ginny said appreciatively, then horrified, to the wandmaker... "A _Tasmanian Steel-Hide_? They're really, really rare still; you didn't take its heartstring, did you?"

"No, no." The old man patted her head. "It's still perking around happily. I caught it on its first moult."

"Tasmanian Steel-Hide," Ren repeated. It was a breed that hadn't existed in their old world. "I don't think I've heard of them before.'

"They're so cute!" Ginny enthused. "Smallest of all the dragons, some don't even hit ten feet. They're only native to the one island and were almost hunted to extinction because when you grind their teeth and talons down, it's one of the strongest natural anti-toxins there is. A quarter-spoonful's even better than bezoars!"

"We have a few in our breeding programs at the Reserves," Charlie told him as he browsed wand holsters. "You'll love 'em. Sweetest things ever, but whoo. Don't let'em near the Vipertooths. They hate 'em worse than the Horntails do, and when they break out and get at each other..."

"Huh," Ren said again. 'Can you buy it? The powdered teeth and talons, I mean?"

"Sure.  S'not cheap, and the timing can be a bit of a wait because it's the law now that you have to wait till they shed naturally, but it's available. Why?"

"If it's that much of a great natural anti-toxin, and comes from the live source, it might make a really good ingredient for some of the inks I use specially for bio-runics," the Warder explained. 'In sequences designed to repel certain effects of certain curses. Blood curses, especially. What else have they got to be going on with?"

"Not a lot. They're really fast and maneuverable, but their fire's barely hot enough to boil water. Good for riding around the place though; some of the trainees who come in aren't great at apparition, and even more of them are lousy on brooms, so they use them to get to the furthest reaches. Mostly they're just really big and friendly scaly ponies with wings."

"It's funny," Ginny said, examining the wand again. "Wood from a young and an old tree, and two wands for the same bloke with a hair from a unicorn and his baby? What do you think it means, Mr. Ollivander?'

"Off-hand?" the old wandmaker said. "That if he keeps this one in good condition, he could very well pass on more than the red hair through the generations. It might work just as well for his son or daughter as it would for him, or even a granddaughter or grandson." He considered that. "His first wand- the ash and unicorn hair - wouldn't have done there. Ash bonds to the single owner and the single owner only; it's famous for it - but I'd say, young lady, that with what your brother here has gone through, his new wand likely reflects a new perspective on the importance of family ties, particularly through the descendant line." He'd turned to examine Bill, sitting silently in one of the chairs by the rain-streaked window and watching. "What about you, Mr. Weasley? If I'm not mistaken, you too might need a new partner now."

"Why?" Ginny looked up. "He still has his."

"I don't, actually," Bill said shortly. Sister, brother and employer turned, surprised. 'Or rather, I do, but it doesn't work for me anymore. Not properly, not since we got back on Friday night."

"Ah. May I?"

He handed it reluctantly to the old wandmaker. Ollivander hummed thoughtfully as he examined it.

"Mm. Maple, with unicorn hair again... You Weasleys do favour your unicorns... An excellent traveler's companion, and with a core suited to guarding one with an unhealthy adventurous streak. An excellent curse-breaker's wand, and it's as healthy as it ever was, but... " He lowered it, examining the young man before him closely.  "No, you've grown a bit beyond it, I think. I believe that I do have a match for you, Mr. Weasley, but I'll have to send out for it."

"What, it's not here?'

"No. It's one of a rather unique pair. The owner of the first is also its maker, and, thanks to it - their- nature, he keeps the second in his home, awaiting my owl when I think I may have found an appropriate match."

"Uh? Why?"

"Because is a wand for an established adult, not a malleable child, but under certain circumstances, it might not recognize the difference. Too, it reflects to a certain extent the priorities of its maker at the time of its construction, and that maker, as I said, was not me. It was made here at my  shop, but I could  only supervise its construction, and the individual in question.... Well. Let us just say that while he had not the temperament to pursue the craft as a vocation, his circumstances, and his needs were... particular." He made his way behind the counter and pulled out parchment and a quill. "I'll write to him now. He'll be happy to bring it by this afternoon, if you're inclined to come by right before closing? On your own, mind you. The initial bonding could be a bit of a personal experience, if its maker's history is anything to go by, and I sincerely doubt you'll want an audience."

"You're that sure we'll suit?"

"Yes," Ollivander said, without looking up as he scribed neatly and quickly. "All things considered, and upon reflection... I think that you are, quite possibly, the only person in the world, young Weasley, that it it ever _would_ suit." He initialed the parchment, rolled it and sealed it. "Polly," he called. A neat little house-elf popped in. "Take this to your friend Kippy please, and have her deliver it to her master. Mind you tell her that it's to go to him and absolutely no other.  That'll be seven galleons, Mr. Weasley," he addressed Charlie again.

"Right. Of course." The dragon wrangler  pulled out his money bag and counted out seven shiny gold coins. "Where to next?"

"Eeylops!" Ginny had cheered. "Owl, owl, owl, owl..."

"Nutter," her brother said, and tweaked her nose fondly. "It's Ren's  owl though, not yours, so try to keep your opinions there to the minimum?"

"Can I call you Ren now?" she asked her new brother-in-law-to-be. Ren grinned down at her.

"Of course," he said. "I've never had a sister before. How does it work?"

"You buy me lots of presents," she said complacently, stuffing her hand in his. "And worship and adore me as is my feminine due."

He snorted. "Gryffindor, my ass," he said to Charlie. "She's a Slytherin to the core, this one."

"I don't care where I go." Ginny waved that off. "As long as they let me bring my kneazle, once it’s born. You know his mum, did you know?"

"Whose mum?"

"My kneazle's. She belongs to one of the Hufflepuffs; Mike Donnelly, his family breeds them, but he keeps his at school. Her name's Cleopatra, have you met her?"

"Erhm. Yes. Wait, Cleopatra's pregnant? i thought she was just really fat."

"Good thing you're marrying me, mate," Charlie told him as Bill sniggered. "You'd never get another bird with observational skills like that."

"It's why I started my IM in DADA," Ren said mournfully. "Self-defense. I've got no inherent tact, and my wife had a truly, truly disturbing way with a bat bogey hex whenever I'd put my foot  in it."

"Ooh, bat bogeys are great!" Ginny enthused, and grabbing Charlie's wand (he was, after months without it, reluctant to let it go) pointed at her new brother-in-law-to-be. He howled as a flock took form and departed.

"GINNY!" Bill snapped as he seized the wand."NO!"

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," she said, flustered. "Only  you're an International Master, you were supposed to be able to _duck_!" Ren just rubbed his offended nose gingerly.

"S'okay," he said to Bill. "I'm conditioned to stand in martyr-like shame with that one, and to take my punishment like a man."

"Better get over that before the Invitationals," his fiance observed. "One of the favoured contestants is rumoured to be half-vampire, and has worked up a couple of really nasty variations."

"Seriously?"

"Can't count it out, mate. Can't count anything out. Last tourney on this scale was ten years ago, when I was nine and Billy was eleven, and. Well. Let's just say that there's a reason they leave a decade between. It takes the full ten years for a lot of the repeating contestants to recover from the last go-around."

"What's the story on Terence Higgs' sister-in-law?" Ren asked, diverted. "Leanna sent me an owl right after the duel telling me she was there watching, and that she's one of the top three contenders?"

"Ooh, she's brilliant," Ginny bounced. "Namirembe Obonyo-Higgs, representing Kenya.  Right-hander: wand ten inches even, yew and Nundu spine. She got the Nundu spine from the female of the pair she took out when she was fifteen, and the yew from her ancestors'  family tree. Their actual family tree; they bury all their ancestors under it."

Ren stopped in his tracks.

"A core of _Nundu_ spine?" he repeated. "From the _pair_ she took out when she was _fifteen_?"

"They ate her favourite goat," Ginny explained. "Well, all the goats, and cows, and some of the people too, but it was the goat that got her goat. She snuck out from her village and went after them.  Came home much avenged." She struck a pose. "My name is Namirembe Obonyo, you killed my goat, prepare to die!"

"Erhm. What?"

"I dunno. It's her catch-phrase. All of the big contenders have one."

"She took out two Nundus when she was _fifteen_? By _herself_? It generally takes at least a  hundred trained hit wizards working together to take down one!"

"That's wizards, not witches. She too deserves her feminine due," the girl said, and bounced her way into Eeylops', Bill right behind her.

"Pretty sure you've offset her odds with the lethifolds there, mate," Charlie said, comfortingly as they, too,  mounted the steps. "Even if you did take them all out from the distance. And you're a two-hander, with the All-Universe Grandmastery from Dark Wanker U,  how many more years of experience and all the extra decades' worth of developed spells to work with besides?"

"I'm getting the  sudden urge to go work out," Ren said. "Hard."

Back in the waiting lounge, Charlie threaded his fingers through Fred's hair, and lowered his hand to trace a finger over George's perfect left ear. They both batted him off in their sleep.

"It'll be fine," he reassured Ron for the hundredth time. "He told us, remember, that it'd take awhile?"

"It's been nine hours," Ron sank down in his chair and glanced toward the door again as he tore open a bag of crisps his father tossed him. "D'you reckon something's gone wrong?"

"D'you really think he could be in any better hands if it had?"

Ron said nothing but his eyes fell yet again on the glimmering gold ring on the fourth finger of Charlie's left hand... Charlie followed his gaze, watching as his eyes darted away and his long face tightened.

"What is it?" he asked his youngest brother directly. "Does it bother you that I'm bent?"

"Oh, Charlie," Molly placated immediately. "Of course it doesn't. He's just a little surprised is all, _and_ that everything's happened so quickly, isn't that right, Ronnie, dear?"

Ron's shoulders hunched. Charlie's lips tightened.

"Let him talk for himself, Mum," he said without looking at her. "I wasn't asking you for his opinion, I was asking _him_ for his opinion. Might surprise you to hear it, but it _is_ worth something, you know?"

His mother gasped in outrage. Arthur just sipped his tea. Behind their closed lids, he could tell that the twins were suddenly awake, and listening carefully... Opposite, Percy opened his paper, but mostly to hide his most unholy smirk of an expression.  Ron looked up, genuinely surprised in turn, but...

"Not really, no," he said after a moment. "I wasn't expecting it, but that's just because I hadn't thought about it. You've never talked about blokes or birds, just Quidditch and dragons."

"So you're not upset?" Charlie probed.

"No. Course not. Only Hermione said yesterday  that with your obsession with broomsticks and great flaming spiky things it does make a bit of sense, doesn't it, and as for Master Cartwright... I mean, Ren..." It came out a little awkwardly and self-consciously. "And you getting married so fast, only Padma Patil said she heard Professor Grubblyplank talking to some of the kids in the library and she said that if he had paired Horntails, it probably meant that he was like them in some ways, that when he met the person he loves he just knows it, like they do. So it's not surprising, really, is it."

"No, not really. If you have any questions though, I'd really rather you asked me, not your schoolmates. Or him."

"I don't have any questions." He  looked away though.

"You sure?"

He hesitated. "Were you together when he snogged Malfoy," he said abruptly. Charlie blinked at him.

"No," he said. "Not... I mean, we'd met, but..." he chose his words carefully, in accordance with the prepared stories he and Bill and Ren had worked up. "I reckon... We reckon... That if he looked shocked up there, it's because the Horntails were going a bit nutters on him. They don't - didn't -  know about Solace, right, and they don't do subtlety, really. What they see is what they think is happening. So when Mr. Malfoy snogged Ren in front of all those people, they thought he was. Erhm. Trying to claim him. As his mate. And they knew he wasn't right for him, not as a mate, because he already has one. Mr. Malfoy, that is. A mate. Mrs. Malfoy. Only, Ren knew what was happening, and okay, he doesn't know the Malfoys well, but he could see the political advantages and necessities there, he knows a lot of the local problems through Madam Longbottom, right, so between that, and realizing that they had the Opprobrium curse on them, because when Narcissa said hello, she showed him the mark on her cheek, he put it together all at once, and snogged him back, to show that though he wasn't saying yes, he did understand, and was honoured by their request, and didn't think less of either of them because of the curse. Which a lot of people might, and probably are, and might make fun of them for, but... That's not right, is it?  I mean, it wasn't their fault, and isn't, right? But the Horntails were confused, and thought he was saying he was accepting Mr. Malfoy as his mate when Mr. Malfoy already _had_ a mate, and that was when they told Ren he had one too.  A new one, not his wife. And he was shocked by that, and asked them who, and they showed him my face. And when he left, he had to think about that for a bit, and then he came and talked about it to me, and that was when the Horntails told him - us - that they could fix me. And we tried to argue, we did, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. They were old, yeah, like we told you, really old and dying too, after Brazil, and they said they would rather give what they had left as a gift, to their kid, to make sure he was happy again, then just... Go out for nothing. And we still argued, but when it came right down to it... It was their decision, and it was like Bill said, who were we to tell them that we're not worth that kind of decision or gift? If anyone is... Everyone is. To their parents, anyway."

Ron nodded.

"I reckon Harry would get that," he said. "And Neville too."

"I reckon a lot of people would," his brother said frankly. "And will. And if they don't... It won't matter. The Horntails were either people, entitled to make their own decisions as they saw best, or wands, in which case their opinions didn't matter any because they were just things. And if they were people... Nobody can say that it wasn't their decision. That Ren and I murdered them for our own ends. The kind of, let's call it what it is, miracle, they did... You can't pull that off by forcing someone to do it. It has to be offered. Anybody who knows anything about DADA knows that; you can't power true life, or love, through the sacrifice of an unwilling soul. It has to be a freely offered gift. That's part of what makes - all of what makes - the magics so profound and effective."

Everyone present mulled over that.

"Still," Ron said again. "It must have been a big shock for him. Was it?"

"What? Why? I'm not that bad a bloke, am I?"

"No, course not, but you _are_ a bloke. And he was married to a woman, wasn't she? Katie Bell said that she reckons he likes both when it comes right down to it; that you _can_ like both, but that he might not have really thought about it much till he met a bloke because he told her that he and his wife married really young, and Lav and Parvati said maybe he knew,  but he had to be choosing one to be going on with when he did get married, and Angelina said it was all stupid anyway because it's about liking the person, not the body they're in, and Alicia said she _would_ say that, wouldn't she, only she'd never be able to decide otherwise whether she likes George or Fre..." He dribbled off at the twins' sudden alert and interested eyes focused on him. "Erhm. Never mind then. It's just..."

"Just.. What?" it was probing, but gentle. "Come on, Ronnie. Talk to me. I know you like him; you were happy enough at the idea of pairing him off with Bill, so what's bothering you, really?"

"Charlie," Molly said, obviously (to her son's mind at least) trying to control the dubious turn of  conversation. "Do you really think that this is the time to..."

"Still not asking you for his opinion, Mum. Or yours, for that matter. Go on, Ron."

The other boys (Fred and George included, both now and definitively awake, if indeed, their closed eyes had been indicative of anything at all), and Ginny, looked at each other covertly as Molly's lips pursed. Behind the paper, Percy's unholy smirk grew to an outright wide grin.

"It's just..." Ron struggled. "You're alright now, but  now... Bill isn't. And Master Cartwr... Ren... hasn't got the Horntails anymore. To work with. _On_ Bill."

"He didn't have them when he got his IM in DADA," Percy pointed out, lowering his paper. It was the first time he'd spoken in four hours. Everyone jumped. "And it's curses he's working with it, isn't it? Bill's always said it himself, Ron; curse breaking doesn't really involve pure power as much as it requires good instincts, precise timing, fast reflexes, and knowledge, and he wouldn't have - has never needed - any special wands for any of that." He raised his paper again.

"S'truth," Fred agreed, not removing his head from Charlie's lap. Everyone jumped again. "And he's such a git anyway; he'd have to really trust Ren to let him do this. Never mind 'prentice on with him, on his _word_ ,  with no contract, and he doesn't trust anybody, so that's a good sign of his confidence in him, innit?"

 "I think so." George closed his eyes all the way again.

"Are their souls gone too," Ron ventured. "D'you reckon? The Horntails', I mean, like with Dementors, since they were in the heartstrings, and they burned out?"

"No. Their souls were bound to their heartstrings as long as they were alive.  They never died in the first place, they just switched bodies. Now that their bodies are dead, they've gone On."

"It's like a fairytale." Ginny sighed. "I wonder if..." She cut herself off abruptly, springing to her feet as the door opened. The rest of the family shot up as one.

“Is he going to be okay?” Ron demanded of Ren, now appeared before them.

“He’ll be fine.” Ren smiled tiredly down at the boys. “Took a bit longer than I expected, but it's done, and he's sleeping now. He'll be spending the night here, and then he can get on with getting on."

“Will he have scars?” Fred demanded avidly, shoving up on the sofa. Ren seated himself between him and Charlie, rolling his neck gingerly, and flexing his hands and fingers. He wore a plain white t-shirt and his cargo pants, a wand sticking out of each pocket.

“No,” he said. “It wasn't that kind of curse. He’s going to need a few weeks to bounce back, though. Peace and quiet, lots of good food...

“Of course he will.” Molly Weasley blew her nose briskly. “We’ll just fix his room up, and he can come right home with us as soon as the healers release him in the morning."

"Molly..."

“No, Mum,” Charlie cut his father off. Ren said nothing. “It’s not what he wants.”

“Don’t be silly, dear. I know we’ve had our problems, but I can control myself at least-“ every one of her children snorted at that; she ignored them, if not superbly, at least pointedly – “And what other option does he have right now? He can’t stay with you and Ren; you’re newlyweds, and he has his written reports for the Masteries Board to complete, and training for the Invitationals besides.”

“He can stay with us exactly however long he wants to,” her second son said bluntly. “From tomorrow on. He's not just my brother; he’s Ren’s apprentice, and he was really the one who took care of me all these weeks besides, wasn't he? Bit ungrateful to toss him out after all that when he needs us now; he was beside me every moment of every day; he volunteered to go with Ren to Brazil just so he wouldn't have to go in alone, because it's not like he'd be able to be useful, you _know_ that, and  now that we’ve bought the house on Bolingbroke and can expand and arrange things exactly how we like, that's just what we plan to do.  Arrange things exactly as we like, with him there with us. Permanently, if he'd like that, because both Ren and I would."

“Oh Charlie,” she said. The children slumped in resigned tandem, mouthing along to each other. “Fine. Alright. I don’t see why you have to stay there, though. There are so many other options; there are several lovely places up for sale and renovation near Ottery St. Catchpole, or Hogsmeade, even, near Hogwarts and Ren's grandfather, and it isn’t as if you can’t afford it, is it?”

“Got nothing to do with whether we can afford it, Mum. We just like the neighbourhood.”

“But...”

“Molly,” Arthur said quietly. “Let it go. “

“You’re very kind, Mrs. Weasley – “ Ren said.

“Molly, dear. Or Mum.”

Ren ignored that. “But Bill won't be going home with us either, not right away anyway. The surgery's over, yes, and the curses broken, but he needs a lot more than homecare can provide him. He’ll need an onsite Mind Healer to help him through, and to, his complete recovery, possibly a whole team of them, and Professor Black, and several of the other healers here, for that matter, have recommended the hospice where he stayed after he was released from Azkaban. We’ll be bringing him over in the morning.”

“The... Are you talking about St. Dymphna’s? But that’s a secured facility! They don’t allow guests!”

“They’ll allow Ren,” Arthur said firmly to his wife. “As his _de facto_ healer, and Charlie, since got  Bill’s power of medical attorney. That’ll be more than enough, and we are not going to argue with him. This man has saved three of our children now, Molly, never mind everything else he's done for everyone else, and I think he’s proved that his judgment can be trusted."

Molly looked as if she’d like to argue, but her husband shot her a sharp look.

“Why does he need Mind Healers?” Percy asked blankly. He looked, like every good Englishman of Ren’s considerable acquaintance, rather unsettled and horrified by the thought. 

“It has to do with the particulars of the curses he got hit with. The major effect was to give him insight into places that the caster had been, and seen,” Ren explained. “As if seeing through a second set of eyes and memories. It’s why he was so good at curse-breaking; the caster had set up a lot of the Dark wards on hidden sites across the continents, and by exploring those sites through that wizard's eyes, Bill could see how to dismantle and break the curses he'd set. The problem there is that for years now, he's been seeing almost _everything_ through two sets of eyes, and the past too, and though he'd got used to it - more or less; a lot of his grouchier moments over the years have probably had to do with having to live as two people simultaneously, while trying to cope with the here and now - now that it’s gone, he’s only seeing through his single set _, in_ the here and now. He’s bound to be very disoriented, and ...” Ren hesitated, looking at Charlie. Charlie nodded. He turned back to Percy. “He was on some pretty heavy duty medications,” he said directly. “There wasn't just disorientation, there was a lot of pain involved there. A _lot_ of pain. There generally is; gifts like that, such as they are, and to be honest, the caster probably did see it as a gift, given to some future heir of sorts, comes at a price. A heavy price, and now that it's all done with, he's got some heavy potions addictions to kick as well. That sort of thing takes time, and absolutely, absolutely requires constant, in-house medical monitoring.

“Pain,” George repeated, sitting up. “You mean... Like headaches?”

“No. Well, yes, those too, but mostly at the site where the curses originally hit him." He looked Molly straight in the eyes. "From what I could tell, it looks like he got nailed right in the back.”

Molly blanched, covering swiftly. Arthur, interestingly, just looked puzzled.

“He’s better now,” Ren said, turning his attention back to the children. “He was very lucky. By the time he came to me - and you have no idea, _no_ idea, the kind of strength of mind and determination it did take him to come to me; he was working against a geas of specific silence _and_ a geas of fear on discussing the subject with even those closest to him, never mind strangers  - he was badly enough off so that he could literally have dropped dead at any moment. He’s coming to grips with that too. All in all, kids, and of course what he saw in Brazil, I think it’s best he just takes a few weeks to process. All letters and whatnot to be sent through Charlie here, and I’ll make sure he gets them."

“He could have _died_?” Ginny said in a small voice. Ren thought about softening that, but didn’t.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was a damned close thing, like I said. He'll be fine now, though.” He crooked his finger. Surprisingly she came, and settled on his knee, and he was reminded yet again that she was not, in fact, his Gin’s counterpart, but her counterpart's unborn identical twin. Even the two or three hours in her company the day before had been enough to spot the differences. She had her blazing moments, but on the whole, she seemed a bit softer than his Gin, definitely more open and physically affectionate, and though, as Ron had mentioned way-back-when, she yet liked Quidditch, it was all strictly theoretical. Hellfire on a broomstick, yes, but her aim, she'd told him was not to play the game, but to race competitively. Too, her ‘thing’ for animals was not so much a ‘thing’ as an obsession. "And he's not going to, not for a long, long, long time."

"I'm sorry about your wands,"  she said. "I'm not sorry Charlie`s better, but I`m sorry they`re gone.

 “They were tired,” he said. “And old.  Really, really old. The oldest that ever there were; near a thousand years old each, and Brazil took a lot out of them. Everything but the little they had left to give to fix up your brother, yeah?”

“Did it hurt?” she asked Charlie.

“Nah. Ren just pointed them at me, like they told him to, and everything went hot for a minute, and bright, and when I woke up, I was better, and the wands were dark.” He, too stroked her hair. “Horntails really don’t like Vipertooths. Viperteeth? They’re all sneaky with the poison and all, and Horntails don’t do sneaky. They think it’s dishonorable.”

‘Are you sorry?” she said to Ren. He crossed his eyes at her.

“Yes and no? I’ll miss them horribly, but they were tired. Dying, like I said. They wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be alone, the way I was when they first found me, in that in-between place, after I lost my wife. And they liked Charlie right from the start. A lot, and could tell I liked him too, that we liked each other more than we realized, straight up, and made sure we’d be able to be together."

`What are you going to do about the Invitationals?”

“Use my back-ups. They’re pretty awesome too.  I got them the same day I got my armor, and they all go well together. So how’d you get your name anyway?” he asked the girl. “I’ve never heard of anyone called Ginevra before.”

“From Guinevere. Different version. Dad’s Arthur, right?”

“Ah,” Ren said, and then experimentally. “Gin –neeeeeev –rah. Guinevere. Didn’t exactly get her happy ending, did she? Dunno about you, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a big fan of not-happy endings.  And  I’m your brother now too, so I’m allowed to give you a nickname. I think I’ll just call you Niamh.” He pronounced it 'Neeve.' "

 “Huh?”

“Niamh. It’s Irish. Means bright. Radiant.” He tugged her hair.

“Niamh,” Ginny Weasley repeated. “Niamh.. Neeeeve. Gin- neeeev-rah. Neeeeeve.  Bright. Radiant.” She looked ridiculously pleased. “I like it. Can I use it when I register at Hogwarts, Dad?”

“You’re asking us? “ her father said dryly. “You’ve never bothered before.”

"It's fine," Ginny said to Ren. "You're my brother now, like you said, so you're allowed. That goes for the rest of you too," she said to her other brothers. "Ginny's a stupid name. A baby name, and I'm not a baby anymore."

 “Fantastic." Ren hugged her, then, cocking his head... "Tell me something. Why are you so bent on going to Hogwarts?”

“Huh? Where else would I go?”

“Somewhere else? There are lots of good schools out there. Hogwarts is only one of them, and if you really do want a career in broom racing and/or one with magical animals, like we talked about yesterday, Castelobruxo’s a way better choice, especially without the risk now of being snarfled by your own sheets. World's best program in magizoology, and let me tell you, if you learn to run the jungle on a broomstick and make it to graduation, you’ve got a career as a racer in the bag. It’s where all of the best go to train because there’s the incentive of literally riding for your life to improve your skills.” 

“But our whole family’s gone to Hogwarts!”

“You don’t have to do everything everyone expects of you,” her new brother-in-law pointed out. “Just because they do expect it.” He tweaked the brim of his badger cap at her. She grinned.

“Ronnie and Fred and George and Perce were so mad,” she confided to him. “They thought for sure the Hat would put you into Gryffindor on your ReSort yesterday.”

“And the Ravenclaws thought they’d get him for his great big brain and his new Adept status, and Slytherin thought they’d get him because of the cunning fluff-and-fold plan, and nobody at all, even the ‘Puffs, thought he’d go there,” Charlie agreed. “Just goes to show you.”

“He could at least have let it have its say,” Ron sulked, but only a little. “Not very friendly of him to refuse to even put it on, _or_ to tell it to shut its pigeon-holing yawp when it argued, _or_ to tell it that it could keep its stupid opinions to itself."

“I didn't need to put it on. Everyone chooses their House in the end, and I chose the one I wanted,” Ren said. “The 'Puffs are great people: no, wonderful people, and for all that everyone says the Hat sticks them there because they don’t have any of what the other Houses do, it’s not true at all. They have _all_ of what the other Houses do. It's called being well-rounded. Bravery, smarts, and cunning, along with their own sound work ethic, kind hearts and loyalty... What more could anyone ask for? Oh, and they’re right next to the kitchens besides," he added. "I like being right next to the kitchens. There's food there."

"House elves?" George suggested.

"They do have lives, you know? Ones outside ensuring their humans' gratification even. Some of them are even aware of it, and the rest, much like their humans again, just need educating on the matter. Oh, and once I’m done the Invitationals, I’m  taking over as House Quidditch coach, and am going to badger their sorry black and yellow butts all the way to Quidditch Cup by the end of the year or my name’s not Lawrence Domitian Weasley-Cartwright." He chuckled as boos and jeers sounded all around at that.

“What about you, Charlie?" Fred asked. "Don’t you want to wrangle dragons anymore?"

“Course. I’m married now, though.” Charlie tweaked his brother’s nose. “Compromises are where it’s at. That being said, we’ll be going back to the Reserves this summer, to get Bill started on his spell-casting practicum at least, and after that, we'll see what's what. Never mind that we could very well have a baby to help raise in the next year or so, and we’re not going to just off and leave it with the Malfoys, right? S’not how Solace works.”

“Do you really like them?” George said doubtfully. "The Malfoys,  I mean? Honestly? Or is it all just about politics after all?"

“We don’t know them. But I think a lot of the stuff you’ve heard is just that, stuff. Sometimes it isn’t... But sometimes it is. “

“What about you, Ren?”

“I don’t know,” Ren said. “But we’re going to find out.  I had dinner with Mr. Malfoy yesterday; we ran into each other by accident when we were both out and about, and it went pretty well.  He’s a pretty cool guy, really; not what I expected or had been led to believe at all. As for the meeting tomorrow, it’s not a commitment. It’s so we can meet properly, all of us, and find out about each other, and ask questions, an decide whether we want to go ahead with it. We have six weeks to decide. We’ll keep meeting up, and talking, and if at the end of that six weeks, we feel it’ll work out... We'll go from there." He boosted Ginny neatly to her feet. “That being said, I do have a lot to do in the next month, and I'm totally beat besides, so I need to get home to bed.”

Fred and George sniggered in rather horsy tandem at that. Charlie grabbed them by the ears and smacked their heads together. One by one, the boys – even Percy – came to hug the two men. Arthur blinked back tears as he hugged his son, and drew Ren into a rough embrace.  Ron looked over his shoulder, wiggling his fingers as they made their way to the Apparition room... Ren sighed and sat down. Charlie sat beside him as he cast a discreet all-purpose privacy charm.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No,” Ren said. “Not particularly. Not at all, actually. His back's clear of magic now, and with the proper treatment he won’t have scars because he wasn’t actually cursed, but it still looks like somebody stuck a knife, or rather a sharpened wand, in his back and stirred. Which isn’t surprising, since that’s as far as I can tell, exactly what happened.’

“Huh?”

“As much as I'd love to blame your mum for everything... The sequences _were_ properly set.  I got past the certain level, I could tell. The two bottom layers were intact, which is generally pretty indicative that the rest followed.  _That_ means that ... I’m guessing... That they were somehow set by remote, from the other end of the link.  We’ll still have to talk to your mum and find out what happened after that, though; there was a foreign wand signature there, tangled in, from this side, and it isn't hers. It stuck out like a sore thumb because there shouldn’t be a wand signature at all, because with the exception of the geases and Notice-Me-Nots - none of which again were cast by your mother's wand - the magics there are purely bio- runic, of the variety that don't require seals. No spellcast triggers, not from this end anyway, just on our Bill’s. That means that at some point in the weeks following the transfer, somebody came by your house to visit, took note of what was there, and decided to go poking about to see what was what. Kind of like pressing a big red button to see just what will happen. After it all blew up, they cast the geases and the Notice-me-Nots to cover their arses, likely with your mum's consent, but considering the person probably told her there was no way to fix it, yet anyway, and that the steps she agreed to to retether your soul are, while not actually Dark, definitely blood magic and thus highly illegal in this time and place, she probably thought she had no choice. Never mind," he added. "That I got the definite impression just now that your dad had, and has, no clue about any of it. I'm going to want to have a look at him too. The kind of magics that he'd have to have laid on him for him to overlook Billy's kind of injuries for twenty years... and yeah, the rest of your brothers and Gin too - well. I can tell you right now, there's no way in _hell_ your mum could manage those. She's a talented witch, but she just plain doesn't have that kind of oomph."

Charlie digested that.

“Can you tell whose signature it was?” he asked.

“Yeah. I can. I even know the wand. Or did. It’s dead now.”

He blinked. “Not Snape? And the female Horntail, when he had it?”

“Nope. The Horntails would have broken themselves before doing that. “

“Then who?”

Ren was silent. Charlie squeezed his shoulder.

“Tell me when you’re ready,” he said. “Just don’t go off half-cocked, okay, mate? Whatever happens now, we’re in it together.”

Ren leaned against him. His husband slid a strong arm around him, pulling him in. Ren turned and wrapped his arms around him, burying his face in the ginger and gold hair.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, muffled.

“Likewise, mate,” Charlie whispered, and pulling back a bit, kissed him slowly and deeply... He tasted, not of chocolate and cigars, but of bright burst orange, slightly burnt nutmeg, and wood smoke.  When he pulled back, he touched Ren's scar. It looked, again, exactly as it had when they’d snuck back to Hogwarts and the Room of Requirement to ask for the replacement... Oddly, when Ren had Summoned a garter snake to check his status, he’d found he was still a Parselmouth. “You ready to go home?”

It was low and rough and full of intimate promise. Ren shifted a bit. Despite their marriage - and they both did consider the moment that they’d both been drowned in the dragon fire the official ceremony - Charlie had still insisted that they wait to consummate till after the mundane legalities were done with... Ren had rolled his eyes on that, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t had errands to run: the breaking of the news of Charlie's recovery to the stunned and overjoyed family: the buying of a new owl to replace Phineas: the buying of replacement wands for Charlie and Bill again, the letter sent to the Malfoys (and the unexpected neo-dinner date with Lucius himself), the re-setting of Sadie Borgin's wards, and before _that,_ of course, the second trip back to the school to book the date for Jax King's second-of-three surgeries and to settle the question of House affiliation...What with one thing and another, the two men had rather had to scramble to find a moment where they could make their way to the Ministry of Magic, with Bill as their only witness, and to sign the papers. The aftermath of _that_ little revelation had yet to hit them personally, for Ren had taken the cowardly way out, having booked a private room at St. Mungo’s for Bill's own necessary surgery not thirty minutes after the ceremony that morning... He'd ported himself and the two brothers directly to the hospital from the Ministry, and only then had owled the family to tell them that the marital deed was a _fait accompli_ , and that, as no one on either side had been invited, no one, again on either side, had any room to whinge. They would anyway, of course, he knew, but hopefully, he thought they'd have the courtesy to complain to the members of the  outraged company he'd provided them, not to him himself.

“Yeah,” he said. Charlie kissed him again. Such was its effectiveness in transporting him firmly and solidly to the given moment that all other concerns immediately fled his attention, and Ren's gut twisted in anxious anticipation... He closed his mind to his own trepidation firmly and kissed him back, but it must not, he thought, have been particularly convincing, because after only a few moments, his husband pulled back, puzzled.

“What is it?’ he said, and his brown eyes lighting in comprehension... “You’re nervous!”

Ren opened his mouth, then closed it. “Bit yeah,” he said reluctantly. “It’s not you, it’s... I mean, I do want to. I want you.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean you’re ready."

Ren shifted a bit, pulling Percy's abandoned newspaper out from under his hip and clutching it in his hands.“It’s stupid,” he said.

“It’s not stupid,” Charlie disagreed. “At all. Just because you’ve admitted that you’re bent, mate, and we’re together now for good and all doesn’t mean you’re ready to do the deed yet. Makes sense, really; you’ve been so caught up in everything that’s happened the last few days that you haven’t had time to breathe, much less process your own  self-acknowledgement beyond the initial admission and rush of compensating hormones.“ He cupped his cheek and leaned in to kiss him again. Ren’s eyes closed automatically... It was slow again, and sweet, and there was passion there, but tightly, near ruthlessly reined again. “Maybe it’s a good thing I’m such an old-fashioned boy after all, yeah? Because when I do make love to you, _mate_...” His voice was rougher and more intimate than ever, and the phrasing, Ren noted, rather... exact. “I want you _there_. With me, and without a single fear or regret going in _or_ coming out.” His thumb, attached to the hand yet cupping Ren's cheek, traced his lower lip... The tiny action sent an almost visceral lurch straight through him. The newly christened Charles Septimus Weasley-Cartwright might look a cheerful, robust and youthful nineteen, but Ren was acutely aware that he was, in fact, chronologically  sixty, and again and never mind _that,_ always and ever in his mind, eight years older than him.  Ren turned his face to kiss his square, re-calloused palm.

“What about what you want?” he asked.

“I want absolutely everything you do,” his husband said. “And absolutely nothing you don’t.”

“I do want...” Ren's tongue tangled. “It’s not... Argh.” He slumped back, and dropped his face in his hands. “This is so stupid. And embarrassing. I’m a hundred thirty-eight years _old,_ for God’s sake!”

Charlie actually laughed at that as he rose to his feet and pulled him up. “Will you relax? Never mind our ages or our mutual specific experiences, or not, we’re all virgins when we’re with a new partner, C’mon. Come with me. We’ll go home, enlarge the bed – we can sleep together anyway - and maybe snog and feel  each other up a bit. After that... We’ll see what’s what. If that’s nothing at this point, I am absolutely one hundred, no, one _thousand_ percent okay with that.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Go on ahead,” Ren said. “I want to check in on Billy once more time. Reassure him I won’t let your mum get her talons in him."

“Plenty of lovely houses near Ottery St. Catchpole,” Charlie mimicked.  Ren snorted with laughter.

“Go on,” he said again. He waited till Charlie had turned the corner before getting to his feet and making his way down to the hall to the men's south-side loo. He did his business and washed his hands, shaking them dry... A small pale spider, less than a quarter size of his thumbnail – more of an eighth, really – was busily spinning a line between the window-frame and the sink.

“Hullo,” the reborn wizard said aloud. He almost imagined the spider waved a foreleg down at him. “Fancy meeting you here. Don’t you have a cupboard to hang out in? Some other poor abused, closeted kid to bond with? You don’t have to follow me about everywhere, you know; I’m all grown up now. _Okay_ , even." That last was not a little sardonic.  Lily Evans Potter was likely more than a little pissed that she'd not been invited to the wedding, but her self-congratulatory vindication over her apparently successful interpretation of her son's state of mind after his arrival at Bolingbroke Court on Sunday morning had been rather... Irritating. Minerva McGonagall hadn't been the only one who looked as she would have liked to give her a good swift hex to the arse as she not-so-subtly doted and gloated... She'd been so obnoxious with it, if only through her expressive smirking, in fact, that, after the point even Snape had shot her a quelling look.

The spider said nothing. Ren glanced about, hauled out his wand and cast a quick spell or two.

“Nobody’s getting in, nobody’s getting out,” he said. He rubbed his eyes, leaning against the sink. “This should not be this hard.”

The spider looked at him inquisitively. Ren waved his wand again. Before the startled spider’s pinprick-sized eyes, the loo transformed, or rather shrank, alarmingly so.

“I do my best thinking in small spaces,” he informed the spider. “Don’t like ‘em, but there it is. You try being raised in an effective prison cell for ten years, and just see how many bad habits you have to break after.” He slumped down on a suddenly appeared toddler mattress, complete with single folded sheet, and, reaching over to pick up a random and conjured stray sock, shook it out. “Welcome to my world. Or psyche. Whatever. It's all one, really.” He slid back and leaned, cross-legged back against the reduced and dusty wall. “Question of the ages, what do Harry Potter and Ren Cartwright have in common? Besides the really nifty scars, of course.” The spider scuttled over and sat on the edge of the sink. “He’s not a bad kid. Bit confused, but there's nothing he's got to do right now where he is but recover, so he, at least, should be alright in the end.   The nutters don’t have to ruin you. You don’t have to be what people expect you to be.” His voice cracked. “That’s all very well, but what if it’s all you know? DADA, Dueling, Wards. Wards. They keep things in, they keep things out.  And okay, I know it’s not normal, but what if it’s all you know? It’s all I do know. All I’ve _ever_ known, no matter what anyone else thinks. I keep shit locked up inside, I keep everyone out. So fucking good at it that they give me a Grandmastery for it.”

He pulled his knees up and buried his face, not just in his hands, but his folded arms.

“Nothing really changes, does it,” he said, muffled. “Nothing really can. I came all this way toward the end of  totally changing everything, changing myself even...  Fucking supposed to be my big do-over, and what’s the first fucking thing I do? I kill twelve men. Twelve men that I didn’t even have to kill, and okay, they were murderous baby-raping assholes, but I did out of fucking _habit_. And the assholes who sent them are still out there. Still out there, and I haven’t had time to go looking them up in so much as the bloody phone book, because shit just keeps coming _down_ , like it always does. Fucking names. I have the _names_ , handed me on a silver fucking platter. Ifor Driscoll, Calum King, Dorrie Carrow, Walden McNair. I have the names, I just don’t have the _time._ ” He pressed his hands to his eyes. “If there was just someone who... But I just don’t know who I can _trust_ here. I don’t know who knows who, I don’t know... _Anything_. Fucking head of the fucking Aurors, first day I meet him and he’s possessed by fucking Voldemort. Doesn’t exactly set a good precedent, does it? Never mind Lucius 'Hello, Lawrence, this is my wife, would you like to come for tea on Wednesday so that we might discuss your screwing me and knocking her up' fucking _Malfoy_. " What the hell is a nice self-repressing boy supposed to say to _that_ : "Why certainly, Luke; shall I bring anything? Perhaps a nice big bar of that goddamned spiced chili chocolate that I’ve been craving since you and your tongue successfully surprised me into outing myself _to_ myself, and in front of three thousand people yet? “ He banged his head back against the wall. “Ow.”

The spider watched him silently. Ren sighed and lifted his head.

“I got married this morning,” he informed the tiny creature. “To a man. The man of my dreams. And I’m so fucked up, he has to tell me that it’s okay, _really_ okay, if we don’t shag. He’s at home right now, enlarging the bed so we can _cuddle_ , and my first instinct is to go back to my fucking closet. To recreate it, and sit here and talk to a bloody buggering bollocking _spider.”_ He held out a finger. The spider skittered on obligingly. He sat back and tilted his hand, letting it sit in his palm. “You guys get a bad rap, you know that? Acromantulas, okay. They’re a different story. I could’ve done without the acromantulas. Christ, I still dream about _those...”_ He shuddered.”Half a million lethifolds have nothing on walking into a clearing the size of a Quidditch pitch and realizing you’re standing in the middle of a couple thousand hungry intelligent lorry-sized man-eating spiders. But you little guys... You little guys just make me feel better. You _know_ what it’s like, being thought of as the big scary one when all you want to do is spin your web in your corner and live a peaceful happy life... Have a few dozen babies to cuddle – eight legs, you gotta know how to do the job properly there, which is more than I’ll likely ever be able to manage -  eat the occasional bit of take away delivered to your door...“

He leaned over and deposited the spider gently on the sink. Picked up the paper, started to leaf through it, and set it down again.

“I gotta tell you,” Ren said suddenly. “He might be a bit of a drama queen, but that took guts, what Malfoy did. Gotta admire a guy who can square up and do what he has to do, and okay, all personal angst aside and don’t tell anybody, but I kind of like him for that. Admire him, even. Sirius can go on all he likes about how times evolve and people change, but that’s just because he’s marrying a _real_ Big Scary One. It’d take a complete fucking _lunatic_ to poke fun at Remus Lupin, to his face _or_ behind his back. As far as the rest of us are concerned though...   I know, I _know_ that people are out there sniggering right now. Pointing, laughing, making the nasty comments and innuendo...  All over the fucking world now. A man who can grit his teeth and smile through that... Who has to know what kind of hell I could make it for him, both publicly and privately, and still has the balls to face up to the job...“ He shook his head, heaved himself up and waved the wand. The cupboard promptly turned back to the loo.  “Pity I can’t tell him that I’ve got Voldy’s balls in the bag. That all he’s got to do is show up now in a body again, his or someone else's, and he’ll be a goner. Never mind beer and curry, there’d be a way for us to give the haters the finger, yeah? Ol’ Noseless’d show up, and while he's facing off against me, mincing about pontificating about how big and bad and invulnerable he is, Malfoy could just...” He gestured. “Sneak up behind him and stick a fork in him. Bam, done. You're welcome, world: a nice curry, beer, and fuck-you-all shag, and _then_ we could team up and go after Albus 'maim-and-torture-and-soak-my-bloody-secret-Wand-of-Evil-Legend -in-the-blood-of- innocent-kids-just-for-shits-and-giggles -never-mind-my-personal-Greater-Good’ _Dumbledore_ , and bring him home for Gramps to chew up, just like he chewed up Bellatrix bloody Black buggering Lestrange. For which he still owes me one very detailed memory, by the way, and believe you me, as soon as I have time to fucking  breathe, I _do_ intend to collect.”

The spider tipped and fell into the sink. Ren caught it deftly as it skittered down toward the drain.

“Careful there,” he said to it. “I’m on a schedule these days. You lucked out this time, but I can’t always promise I’ll be around to save the day. I’ll do my best, but there are only twenty four hours per, and the world’s my official territory now too.” He straightened his t-shirt, and cast a quick breath-freshening charm. “Okay. Okay. I can do this. Home. Man. Bed. Dragon eating the fair maiden, woot! Mm.  Okay, maybe if he starts with that... Things always, _always_ go well when you start with that.”

He flicked his wand to cancel his wards and cracked out. The spider watched him go -

And promptly morphed into a tall, elegant man with platinum hair. The signet ring on his finger glimmered softly as he bent and picked up the abandoned newspaper, unfolding it to the sports page as he eyed the door.

“Well now, Master Cartwright,” Lucius Malfoy murmured as he studied the faces before him.  “Wasn’t this a fortuitous little coincidence, and most enlightening too.” He dug into his pocket, and retrieved a modified Muggle mobile phone. He thumbed a button and tucked it behind his ear as he folded more pages and perused their contents.

 “I have names,” he said to the individual on the other end of the line. “Yes. No, I have no sources. I never have sources. I have information.  Yes. One codicil, you're to keep Cartwright out of it. Mm.  I imagine he would be, but... No. It would not be strategically prudent.  We may - no, will - have need of his talents in the future, and not just as a Warder, so we do not want to waste whatever non-related credit we have with him now. Too, he must be able to deceive himself that he may depend on the local  constabulary after that fiasco with Moody, and it would not be healthy, either, for the general public to relate to him, particularly as an American, as the singular and prospective solution to its every problem. It is already becoming an issue, and this, at least, and those names considered, is a matter that we locals should be able to manage nicely. I will ensure he's out of the country on the crucial dates, and in the meantime... Namirembe Obonyo-Higgs is visiting her husband’s family in Kent this next week before she too begins her final push on training for the Invitationals. Her particular talents considered, she’ll be more than delighted to assist as necessary, I'm sure.  Of course. Keep me posted."

He disconnected, and glancing around, cracked out.

 

 


	17. Links to new story!

SOLACE - A must-read Feels-Fest !  
Largely from Lucius Malfoy's POV.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8825035/chapters/20233264

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Fire and the Rose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9055699) by [TheJadeSongbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJadeSongbird/pseuds/TheJadeSongbird)




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